* gdbreplay.c (remote_error): New.
[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 7.2
5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
9 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
10 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
11 that function like so:
12
13 result = some_value (10,20)
14
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15* C++ Improvements:
16
17 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
18 instantiation. For example, if you have:
19
20 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
21
22 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
23 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
24 was added to GCC 4.5.
25
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26* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
27 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
28 execution to a label.
29
30* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
31 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
32 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
33 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
34
b56df873 35* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 36 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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37 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
38 of scope.
39
76b8507d 40*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 41
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42* Shared library support for remote targets by default
43
44 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
45 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
46 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
47 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
48 was always disabled for such configurations.
49
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50* C++ Improvements:
51
52 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
53
54 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
55 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
56 For example:
57 namespace A
58 {
59 class B { };
60 void foo (B) { }
61 }
62 ...
63 A::B b
64 foo(b)
65 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
66 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
67 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
68
69 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
70
71 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
72 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
73 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
74 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
75 entry.
76 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
77 mentioned flavors of operators.
78
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79 ** static const class members
80
81 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
82 class definition has been fixed.
83
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84* Windows Thread Information Block access.
85
86 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
87 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
88 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
89 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
90 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
91 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
92
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93* Static tracepoints
94
95 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
96 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
97 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
98 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
99 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
100 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
101 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
102 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
103 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
104 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
105 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
106 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
107 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
108 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
109 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
110 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
111 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
112 the "New remote packets" section below.
113
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114* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
115
116 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
117 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
118 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
119 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
120
121* Observer mode
122
123 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
124 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
125 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
126 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
127 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
128 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
129 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
130
131* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
132 current thread.
133
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134* New remote packets
135
136qGetTIBAddr
137
138 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
139
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140qRelocInsn
141
142 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
143 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
144 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
145 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
146 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
147 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
148
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149qTfSTM, qTsSTM
150
151 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
152
153qTSTMat
154
155 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
156 program.
157
158qXfer:statictrace:read
159
160 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
161 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
162 to gdb's qSupported query.
163
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164QAllow
165
166 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
167
168QTDPsrc
169
170 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
171 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
172
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173* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
174 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
175 a directory.
176
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177* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
178
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179 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
180 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
181 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
182 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
183
184 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
185 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
186 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
187 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
188 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
189 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
190 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
191
192 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
193 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 194
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195 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
196
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197* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
198 it understands register description.
199
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200* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
201
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202* X86 general purpose registers
203
204 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
205 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
206 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
207 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
208 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
209
95a42b64 210* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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211 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
212 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
213 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
214 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
215 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 216
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217* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
218 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
219 in the specified file.
220
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221* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
222 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
223 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
224 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
225 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
226 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
227 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
228 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
229 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
230 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
231
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232* New commands
233
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234eval template, expressions...
235 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
236 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
237
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238set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
239show target-file-system-kind
240 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
241 names.
242
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243save breakpoints <filename>
244 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
245 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
246 definitions, use the `source' command.
247
248`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
249is now deprecated.
250
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251info static-tracepoint-markers
252 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
253
254strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
255 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
256 function, line, address, or marker ID.
257
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258set observer on|off
259show observer
260 Enable and disable observer mode.
261
262set may-write-registers on|off
263set may-write-memory on|off
264set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
265set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
266set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
267set may-interrupt on|off
268 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
269 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
270 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
271 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
272 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
273 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
274 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
275
276set record memory-query on|off
277show record memory-query
278 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
279 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
280
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281* Changed commands
282
283disassemble
284 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
285
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286* Python scripting
287
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288** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
289 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
290 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
291 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
292 GDB using Python' in the manual.
293
adc36818 294** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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295 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
296 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
297 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 298
fa33c3cd 299** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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300 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
301
302** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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303
304** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 305
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306** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
307
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308** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
309 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
310 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
311
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312* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
313there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
314tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
315regular breakpoints.
316
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317* New targets
318
319ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
320
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321* D language support.
322 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
323 language.
324
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325* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
326 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
327 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
328 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
329 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
330
331* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
332 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
333 conditions of the form:
334
335 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
336
337 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
338 interface mentioned above.
339
bfbf3774 340*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 341
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342* C++ Improvements
343
344 ** Namespace Support
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345
346 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
347 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
348 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
349 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
350 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
351
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352 ** Bug Fixes
353
354 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
355 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
356 qualified name.
357
358 ** Cast Operators
359
360 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
361 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
362
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363* New targets
364
365Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 366Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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367
368* New Simulators
369
370Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 371Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 372
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373* Multi-program debugging.
374
375 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
376 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
377 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
378 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
379 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
380 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
381 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
382 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
383
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384* New tracing features
385
386 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
387
388 ** Trace state variables
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389
390 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
391 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
392 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
393 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
394 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
395 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
396 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
397 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
398 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
399 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 400
d5551862 401 ** Fast tracepoints
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402
403 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
404 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
405 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
406 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
407 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
408 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
409 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
410 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
411 the regular trace command.
412
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413 ** Disconnected tracing
414
415 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
416 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
417 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
418 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
419 connection is lost unexpectedly.
420
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421 ** Trace files
422
423 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
424 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
425 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
426 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
427 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
428 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
429 <name>".
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430
431 ** Circular trace buffer
432
433 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
434 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
435 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
436 not be available for all target agents.
437
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438* Changed commands
439
440disassemble
441 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
442 the arguments to be comma-separated.
443
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444info variables
445 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
446 which only declare a variable are not shown.
447
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448source
449 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
450 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
451 support.
452
453 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
454 "set script-extension" (see below).
455
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456* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
457
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458record save [<FILENAME>]
459 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
460 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
461
462record restore <FILENAME>
463 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
464 earlier time, for replay debugging.
465
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466add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
467 Add a new inferior.
468
469clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
470 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
471 inferior has loaded.
472
473remove-inferior ID
474 Remove an inferior.
475
476maint info program-spaces
477 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
478
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479set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
480show remote interrupt-sequence
481 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
482 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
483 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
484 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
485 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
486
487set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
488show remote interrupt-on-connect
489 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
490 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
491 Linux kernel.
492
493set remotebreak [on | off]
494show remotebreak
495Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
496
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497tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
498 Create or modify a trace state variable.
499
500info tvariables
501 List trace state variables and their values.
502
503delete tvariable $NAME ...
504 Delete one or more trace state variables.
505
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506teval EXPR, ...
507 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
508 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
509
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510ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
511 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
512
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513* New expression syntax
514
515 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
516 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
517
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518* New options
519
520set follow-exec-mode new|same
521show follow-exec-mode
522 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
523 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
524 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
525
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526set default-collect EXPR, ...
527show default-collect
528 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
529 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
530 such as registers or a critical global variable.
531
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532set disconnected-tracing
533show disconnected-tracing
534 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
535 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
536 upon disconnection.
537
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538set circular-trace-buffer
539show circular-trace-buffer
540 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
541 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
542 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
543 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
544
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545set script-extension off|soft|strict
546show script-extension
547 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
548 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
549 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
550 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
551 evaluation failed.
552 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
553
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554set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
555show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
556 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
557 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
558 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
559 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
560 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
561 is on.
562
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563* Python API Improvements
564
565 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
566 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
567 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
568
569 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
570 `is_base_class' attribute.
571
572 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
573
574 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
575 evaluate an expression.
576
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577* New remote packets
578
579QTDV
580 Define a trace state variable.
581
582qTV
583 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
584
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585QTDisconnected
586 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
587
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588QTBuffer:circular
589 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
590
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591qTfP, qTsP
592 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
593
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594* Bug fixes
595
596Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
597
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598Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
599much more reliable. In particular:
600 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
601 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
602 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
603 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
604 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
605 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
606 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
607 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
608 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
609 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
610 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
611 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
612 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
613 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
614 non-threaded programs.
615
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616PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
617This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
618libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
619executable program.
620
abc7453d 621*** Changes in GDB 7.0
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623* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
624dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
625them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
626for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
627"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
628
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629* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
630breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
631or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
632the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
633for tracepoint actions.
634
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635* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
636raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
637modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 638
e7a8dbfb
HZ
639* Process record and replay
640
641 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
642 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
643 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
644 execute commands.
645
64644d9b
MS
646* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
647step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
648set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
649reverse execution.
650
b9412953
DD
651* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
652feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
6532.6.28 or later.
654
6c7a06a3
TT
655* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
656target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
657char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
658literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
659U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
660`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
661system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
662the installation instructions for more information.
663
f1838a98
UW
664* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
665remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
666with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
667the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
668
55333a84
DE
669* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
670and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
671
7f6a6314
PM
672* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
673now complete on file names.
674
65d12d83
TT
675* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
676completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
677For instance, consider:
678
679 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
680 # struct example variable;
681 (gdb) p variable.
682
683If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
684completions will be "f1" and "f2".
685
edb3359d
DJ
686* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
687the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
688
2fae03e8
TT
689* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
690operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
691macros.
692
47a3467a 693* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
694the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
695implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
696
697* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
698registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
699can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
700and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 701
08388c79
DE
702* New remote packets
703
704qSearch:memory:
705 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
706
a6f3e723
SL
707QStartNoAckMode
708 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
709 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
710 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
711
d7713ae0
EZ
712vKill
713 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
714 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
715
07e059b5
VP
716qXfer:osdata:read
717 Obtains additional operating system information
718
47a3467a
PA
719qXfer:siginfo:read
720qXfer:siginfo:write
721 Read or write additional signal information.
722
060871df
PA
723* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
724
725 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
726 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
727 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
728
c055b101 729* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 730DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
731
732* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
733and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
734`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 735
31fffb02
CS
736* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
737with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
738
88d8a8e0
JB
739* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
740
7f99b190
JB
741* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
742
ccd213ac
DJ
743* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
744which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
745
1fddbabb 746* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 747list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 748
a0ef4274
DJ
749* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
750conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
751have also been fixed.
752
bfb8797a 753* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
754From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
755are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 756
71c25dea
TT
757* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
758example, given:
759
760 template<typename T> class C { };
761 C<char const *> c;
762
763GDB will now correctly handle all of:
764
765 ptype C<char const *>
766 ptype C<char const*>
767 ptype C<const char *>
768 ptype C<const char*>
769
ccd213ac
DJ
770* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
771
772 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
773 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
774
7ae0e2a2
UW
775 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
776 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
777 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
778
a6f3e723
SL
779 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
780 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
781
da8bd9a3
DJ
782 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
783 gdbserver.
784
d70e31dd
DE
785 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
786 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
787
788 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
789 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
790 as appropriate.
791
d57a3c85
TJB
792* Python scripting
793
794 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
795 available is determined at configure time.
796
d8906c6f
TJB
797 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
798
aadc346a
JB
799* Ada tasking support
800
801 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
802 been introduced:
803
804 info tasks
805 Print the list of Ada tasks.
806 info task N
807 Print detailed information about task number N.
808 task
809 Print the task number of the current task.
810 task N
811 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
812
adb483fe
DJ
813* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
814add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
815
2277426b
PA
816* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
817
818 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
819 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
820 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
821 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
822 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
823 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
824 below.
825
08d16641
PA
826* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
827"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
828information.
829
e35359c5
UW
830* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
831to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
832architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
833See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
834more information.
835
85e747d2
UW
836* Multi-architecture debugging.
837
838 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
839 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
840 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
841 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
842 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
843
844* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
845use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
846Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
847powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
848--enable-targets configure option.
849
11ade57a
PA
850* Non-stop mode debugging.
851
852 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
853 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
854 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
855 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
856 section in the user manual for more information.
857
858 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
859 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
860 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
861 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
862 extensions on linux targets.
863
d7713ae0 864* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 865
a96d9b2e
SDJ
866catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
867 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
868 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
869 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
870 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
871 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
872 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
873 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
874 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
875
08388c79
DE
876find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
877 val1 [, val2, ...]
878 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
879
d57a3c85
TJB
880maint set python print-stack
881maint show python print-stack
882 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
883
884python [CODE]
885 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
886
d7713ae0
EZ
887macro define
888macro list
889macro undef
890 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
891 interactively.
892
893info os processes
894 Show operating system information about processes.
895
2277426b
PA
896info inferiors
897 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
898
899inferior NUM
900 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
901
902detach inferior NUM
903 Detach from inferior number NUM.
904
905kill inferior NUM
906 Kill inferior number NUM.
907
d7713ae0
EZ
908* New options
909
3285f3fe
UW
910set spu stop-on-load
911show spu stop-on-load
912 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
913
ff1a52c6
UW
914set spu auto-flush-cache
915show spu auto-flush-cache
916 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
917 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
918
d7713ae0
EZ
919set sh calling-convention
920show sh calling-convention
921 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
922
e0a3ce09 923set debug timestamp
75feb17d 924show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
925 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
926
927set disassemble-next-line
928show disassemble-next-line
929 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
930 the debuggee stops.
931
932set remote noack-packet
933show remote noack-packet
934 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
935 under "New remote packets."
936
937set remote query-attached-packet
938show remote query-attached-packet
939 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
940
941set remote read-siginfo-object
942show remote read-siginfo-object
943 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
944 packet.
945
946set remote write-siginfo-object
947show remote write-siginfo-object
948 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
949 packet.
950
40ab02ce
MS
951set remote reverse-continue
952show remote reverse-continue
953 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
954
955set remote reverse-step
956show remote reverse-step
957 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
958
d7713ae0
EZ
959set displaced-stepping
960show displaced-stepping
961 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
962 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
963 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
964
965set debug displaced
966show debug displaced
967 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
968
969maint set internal-error
970maint show internal-error
971 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
972
973maint set internal-warning
974maint show internal-warning
975 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 976
ccd213ac
DJ
977set exec-wrapper
978show exec-wrapper
979unset exec-wrapper
980 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 981
aad4b048
JB
982set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
983show multiple-symbols
984 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
985 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
986 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
987
74960c60
VP
988set breakpoint always-inserted
989show breakpoint always-inserted
990 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
991 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
992 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
993
0428b8f5
DJ
994set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
995show arm fallback-mode
996set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
997show arm force-mode
998 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
999 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1000 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1001 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1002
10568435
JK
1003set disable-randomization
1004show disable-randomization
1005 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1006 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1007 multiple debugging sessions.
1008
d7713ae0
EZ
1009set non-stop
1010show non-stop
1011 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1012 a breakpoint.
1013
b3eb342c 1014set target-async
d7713ae0 1015show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1016 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1017 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1018 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1019 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1020
6c7a06a3
TT
1021set target-wide-charset
1022show target-wide-charset
1023 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1024 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1025
84603566
SL
1026set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1027show tcp auto-retry
1028set tcp connect-timeout
1029show tcp connect-timeout
1030 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1031 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1032 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1033
17a37d48
PP
1034set libthread-db-search-path
1035show libthread-db-search-path
1036 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1037 libthread_db.
1038
d4db2f36
PA
1039set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1040show schedule-multiple
1041 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1042 the current process.
1043
4e5d721f
DE
1044set stack-cache
1045show stack-cache
1046 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1047 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1048 affecting correctness.
1049
910c5da8
JB
1050set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1051show interactive-mode
1052 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1053 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1054 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1055 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1056 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1057
2277426b
PA
1058* Removed commands
1059
1060info forks
1061 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1062 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1063 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1064 command.
1065
1066fork NUM
1067 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1068 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1069 alias for the `fork' command.
1070
1071process PID
1072 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1073 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1074 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1075
1076delete fork NUM
1077 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1078 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1079 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1080 fork' command.
1081
1082detach fork NUM
1083 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1084 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1085 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1086 fork' command.
1087
a80b95ba
TG
1088* New native configurations
1089
1090x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1091
b8bfd3ed
JB
1092x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1093
75a2d5e7
TT
1094* New targets
1095
c28c63d8 1096Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1097x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1098x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1099S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1100
6de3146c
PA
1101* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1102 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1103
d5cbbe6e
JB
1104* Removed commands
1105
1106catch load
1107catch unload
1108 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1109
75feb17d 1110*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1111
af5ca30d
NH
1112* New native configurations
1113
1114NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1115Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1116
1117* New targets
1118
1119NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1120Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1121
7a404eba
PA
1122* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1123
1124 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1125 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1126 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1127 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1128
430ebac9
PA
1129* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1130(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1131
fe6fbf8b 1132* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1133is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1134
1135* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1136including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1137and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1138
10665d76
JB
1139* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1140accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1141more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1142
7cc46491
DJ
1143* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1144
d71340b8
DJ
1145* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1146registers on PowerPC targets.
1147
523c4513
DJ
1148* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1149targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1150
a6b151f1
DJ
1151* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1152commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1153
2d717e4f
DJ
1154* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1155extended-remote mode.
1156
24a836bd 1157* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1158The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1159error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1160The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1161
d0c678e6
UW
1162* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1163building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1164target architectures.
1165
d64a946d
TJB
1166* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1167Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1168now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1169stored in two consecutive float registers.
1170
ee163bf5
VP
1171* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1172breakpoints now.
1173
b93b6ca7 1174* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1175Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1176include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1177 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1178 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1179 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1180 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1181 of an assignment
1182 - Improved command completion in Ada
1183 - Several bug fixes
1184
d001be7a
DJ
1185* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1186process.
1187
a6b151f1
DJ
1188* New commands
1189
6d53d0af
JB
1190set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1191show print frame-arguments
1192 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1193 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1194
a6b151f1
DJ
1195remote put
1196remote get
1197remote delete
1198 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1199
1200* New MI commands
1201
1202-target-file-put
1203-target-file-get
1204-target-file-delete
1205 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1206
1207* New remote packets
1208
1209vFile:open:
1210vFile:close:
1211vFile:pread:
1212vFile:pwrite:
1213vFile:unlink:
1214 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1215
2d717e4f
DJ
1216vAttach
1217 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1218 mode.
1219
1220vRun
1221 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1222
8d5f9c6f 1223*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1224
19d378fc
MS
1225* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1226bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1227Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1228
3a40aaa0
UW
1229* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1230symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1231-Bsymbolic linker option.
1232
a6ec25f2
BW
1233* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1234recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1235is not supported.
1236
6dd09645
JB
1237* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1238frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1239
c9bb8148
DJ
1240* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
124132-bit or 64-bit register values.
1242
0d5de010
DJ
1243* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1244
23181151
DJ
1245* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1246target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1247a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1248
ea37ba09
DJ
1249* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1250automatically displayed as character or string data.
1251
1252* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1253arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1254as strings.
e1f48ead 1255
123dc839
DJ
1256* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1257for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1258only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1259
05a4558a
DJ
1260* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1261iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1262
7c963485
PA
1263* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1264ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1265has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1266
b18be20d
DJ
1267* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1268
0ca420ce
UW
1269* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1270
31d99776
DJ
1271* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1272layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1273segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1274
a4642986
MR
1275* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1276immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1277
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1278* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1279"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1280packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1281where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1282Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1283
1284* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1285(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1286
1287* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1288according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1289
c9bb8148
DJ
1290* New commands
1291
23776285
MR
1292set remoteflow
1293show remoteflow
1294 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1295 when debugging using remote targets.
1296
c9bb8148
DJ
1297set mem inaccessible-by-default
1298show mem inaccessible-by-default
1299 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1300 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1301 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1302 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1303 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1304
1305set breakpoint auto-hw
1306show breakpoint auto-hw
1307 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1308 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1309 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1310 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1311 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1312 including "next" and "finish".
1313
0e420bd8
JB
1314catch exception
1315catch exception unhandled
1316 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1317
1318catch assert
1319 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1320
f822c95b
DJ
1321set sysroot
1322show sysroot
1323 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1324 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1325 an alias to "set sysroot".
1326
83cc5c53
UW
1327info spu
1328 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1329 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1330 architecture.
1331
bd372731
MK
1332* New native configurations
1333
1334OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1335
23181151
DJ
1336set tdesc filename
1337unset tdesc filename
1338show tdesc filename
1339 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1340 not query the target for its built-in description.
1341
c9bb8148
DJ
1342* New targets
1343
54fe9172 1344OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1345MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1346Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1347
6dd09645
JB
1348* New remote packets
1349
1350QPassSignals:
1351 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1352 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1353
23181151
DJ
1354qXfer:features:read:
1355 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1356 features.
6dd09645 1357
83cc5c53
UW
1358qXfer:spu:read:
1359qXfer:spu:write:
1360 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1361 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1362
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1363qXfer:libraries:read:
1364 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1365 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1366 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1367 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1368
483367ee
DJ
1369* Removed targets
1370
1371Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1372
d08950c4
UW
1373alpha*-*-osf1*
1374alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1375d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1376hppa*-*-hiux*
1377i[34567]86-ncr-*
1378i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1379i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1380i[34567]86-*-netware*
1381i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1382i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1383i[34567]86-*-sco*
1384i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1385i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1386i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1387i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1388i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1389i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1390i[34567]86-*-isc*
1391m68*-cisco*-*
1392m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1393mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1394rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1395sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1396
7ce59000
DJ
1397* Other removed features
1398
1399target abug
1400target cpu32bug
1401target est
1402target rom68k
1403
1404 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1405
ea35711c
DJ
1406target hms
1407target e7000
1408target sh3
1409target sh3e
1410
1411 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1412 H8/300.
1413
1414target ocd
1415
1416 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1417 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1418 interfaces.
1419
7ce59000
DJ
1420DWARF 1 support
1421
1422 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1423 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1424
54d61198
DJ
1425Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1426
1427 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1428 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1429 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1430 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1431
ea35711c
DJ
1432MIPS ".pdr" sections
1433
1434 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1435 in debugging information.
1436
1437Scheme support
1438
1439 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1440 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1441
1a69e1e4
DJ
1442set mips stack-arg-size
1443set mips saved-gpreg-size
1444
1445 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1446
6dd09645 1447*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1448
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1449* New targets
1450
1451Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1452Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1453
6aec2e11
DJ
1454* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1455(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1456running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1457
1458* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1459Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1460supported.
1461
17218d91
DJ
1462* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1463broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1464
9ebce043
DJ
1465* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1466stub provides the required support.
1467
7d3d3ece
DJ
1468* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1469longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1470
4f8253f3
JB
1471* New commands
1472
1473set substitute-path
1474unset substitute-path
1475show substitute-path
1476 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1477 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1478 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1479 between compilation and debugging.
1480
9fa66fd7
AS
1481set trace-commands
1482show trace-commands
1483 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1484 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1485 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1486
1f5befc1
DJ
1487* REMOVED features
1488
1489The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1490
2ec3381a
DJ
1491Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1492an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1493
3d00d119
DJ
1494The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1495
be2a5f71
DJ
1496* New remote packets
1497
1498qSupported:
1499 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1500 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1501 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1502 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1503 target.
1504
0876f84a
DJ
1505qXfer:auxv:read:
1506 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1507 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1508
9ebce043
DJ
1509qXfer:memory-map:read:
1510 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1511 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1512
1513vFlashErase:
1514vFlashWrite:
1515vFlashDone:
1516 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1517
0876f84a
DJ
1518* Removed remote packets
1519
1520qPart:auxv:read:
1521 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1522 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1523
e374b601 1524*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1525
96309189
MS
1526* New targets
1527
1528Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1529
1530Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1531
53e5f3cf
AS
1532* New commands
1533
1534init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1535 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1536
ac264b3b
MS
1537The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1538
1539checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1540
1541restart <n> Return the program state to a
1542 previously saved state.
1543
1544info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1545
1546delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1547
1548set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1549 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1550
1551info forks List forks of the user program that
1552 are available to be debugged.
1553
1554fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1555 forks of the user program that are
1556 available to be debugged.
1557
1558delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1559 that are available to be debugged (and
1560 kill the forked process).
1561
1562detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1563 that are available to be debugged (and
1564 allow the process to continue).
1565
3950dc3f
NS
1566* New architecture
1567
1568Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1569
0ea3f30e
DJ
1570* Improved Windows host support
1571
1572GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1573native console support, and remote communications using either
1574network sockets or serial ports.
1575
f79daebb
GM
1576* Improved Modula-2 language support
1577
1578GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1579basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1580pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1581printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1582written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1583GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1584
acab6ab2
MM
1585* REMOVED features
1586
1587The ARM rdi-share module.
1588
f4267320
DJ
1589The Netware NLM debug server.
1590
53e5f3cf 1591*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1592
e0ecbda1
MK
1593* New native configurations
1594
02a677ac 1595OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1596OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1597
d64a6579
KB
1598* New targets
1599
1600Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1601
b33a6190
AS
1602* New command line options
1603
1604--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1605--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1606 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1607--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1608 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1609 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1610 with the --command (-x) option.
1611
11dced61
AC
1612* Deprecated commands removed
1613
1614The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1615removed:
1616
1617 Command Replacement
1618 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1619 othernames set arm disassembler
1620 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1621 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1622 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1623 regs info registers
1624
6fe85783
MK
1625* New BSD user-level threads support
1626
1627It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1628library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1629configurations are:
1630
1631FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1632FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1633OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1634
1635Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1636are not yet supported.
1637
5260ca71
MS
1638* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1639(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1640
e84ecc99
AC
1641* REMOVED configurations and files
1642
1643VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1644Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1645National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1646
31e35378
JB
1647* New "set print array-indexes" command
1648
1649After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1650when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1651behavior.
1652
e85e5c83
MK
1653* VAX floating point support
1654
1655GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1656
d91e9901
AS
1657* User-defined command support
1658
1659In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1660to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1661section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1662
f2cb65ca
MC
1663*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1664
f47b1503
AS
1665* New command line option
1666
1667GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1668debugging.
1669
f2cb65ca
MC
1670* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1671
1672GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1673information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1674by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1675proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1676to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1677
d08c0230
AC
1678* Internationalization
1679
1680When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1681internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1682continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1683
117ea3cf
PH
1684* Ada
1685
1686Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1687implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1688into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1689
d08c0230
AC
1690* New native configurations
1691
1692GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1693
1694* Remote 'p' packet
1695
1696GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1697packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1698
1699* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1700
1701GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1702The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1703features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1704i386 application).
1705
1706GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1707compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1708continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1709configurations:
1710
1711hppa-*-hpux
1712ia64-*-aix
1713mips-*-irix*
1714*-*-lynx
1715mips-*-linux-gnu
1716sds protocol
1717xdr protocol
1718powerpc bdm protocol
1719
1720Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1721made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1722
1723* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1724
1725Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1726been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1727configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1728permanently REMOVED.
1729
1730h8300-*-*
1731mcore-*-*
1732mn10300-*-*
1733ns32k-*-*
1734sh64-*-*
1735v850-*-*
1736
ebb7c577
AC
1737*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1738
1739* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1740
1741When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1742heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1743been fixed.
1744
1745* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1746
1747When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1748fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1749IRIX long double values).
1750
1751* VAX and "next"
1752
1753A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1754command. This problem has been fixed.
1755
860660cb 1756*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1757
0dea2468
AC
1758* Fix for ``many threads''
1759
1760On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1761rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1762error message:
1763
1764 ptrace: No such process.
1765 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1766
1767This problem has been fixed.
1768
2c07db7a
AC
1769* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1770
1771Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1772GDB to dump core).
1773
c23968a2
JB
1774* New ``start'' command.
1775
1776This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1777
71009278
MK
1778* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1779
1780Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1781live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1782platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1783
1784FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1785FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1786NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1787NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1788NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1789OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1790OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1791OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1792OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1793
3c0b7db2
AC
1794* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1795
1796Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1797These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1798of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1799call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1800signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1801
73cc75f3
AC
1802Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1803features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1804include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1805
7243600a
BF
1806* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1807
6f606e1c
MK
1808* New native configurations
1809
97dc871c 1810GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1811OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1812OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1813OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1814OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1815NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1816OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1817
a1b461bf
AC
1818* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1819
1820GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1821The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1822including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1823migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1824compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1825work, was also included.
1826
1827GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1828module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1829
1830h8300-*-*
1831mcore-*-*
1832mn10300-*-*
1833ns32k-*-*
1834sh64-*-*
1835v850-*-*
1836xstormy16-*-*
1837
1838Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1839made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1840
3c7012f5
AC
1841* REMOVED configurations and files
1842
1843Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1844Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1845Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1846Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1847Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1848AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1849Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1850decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1851riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1852sonymips mips-sony-*
1853sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1854
e5fe55f7
AC
1855*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1856
1857* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1858
1859The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1860GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1861command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1862program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1863with GDB".
1864
1865* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1866
1867Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1868libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1869cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1870GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1871shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1872the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1873are created.
1874
1875Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1876
1877* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1878
1879The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1880non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1881compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1882
1883* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1884
1885Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1886wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1887
1888* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1889
1890The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1891permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1892systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1893
1894* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1895
1896Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1897has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1898
1899* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1900
1901GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1902its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1903panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1904
1905* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1906
1907When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1908by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1909not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1910
faae5abe 1911*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1912
9175c9a3
MC
1913* Removed --with-mmalloc
1914
1915Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1916conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1917
3cc87ec0
MK
1918* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1919
1920The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1921the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1922and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1923you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1924
f0424ef6
MK
1925* Revised SPARC target
1926
1927The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1928FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1929support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1930from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1931(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1932
59659be2
ILT
1933* New C++ demangler
1934
1935GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1936names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1937with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1938programs.
1939
9e08b29b
DJ
1940* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1941
1942GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1943arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1944encountered these.
1945
8dfe8985
DC
1946* C++ nested types and namespaces
1947
1948GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1949improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1950is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1951Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1952namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1953"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1954frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1955if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1956GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1957
cced5e27
MK
1958* New native configurations
1959
1960NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1961OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1962OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1963OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1964OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1965
b4b4b794
KI
1966* New debugging protocols
1967
1968M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1969
7989c619
AC
1970* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1971
1972The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1973and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1974tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1975
5994185b
AC
1976* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1977
1978Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1979been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1980configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1981permanently REMOVED.
1982
1983Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1984Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1985Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1986Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1987Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1988AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1989Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1990decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1991riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1992sonymips mips-sony-*
1993sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1994
0ddabb4c
AC
1995* REMOVED configurations and files
1996
1997SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1998SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1999Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2000Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2001H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2002HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2003HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2004HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2005PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2006386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2007Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2008 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2009 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2010SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2011SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2012Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2013Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2014
c7f1390e
DJ
2015*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2016
1fe43d45
AC
2017* Objective-C
2018
2019Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2020integrated into GDB.
2021
e6beb428
AC
2022* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2023
2024DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2025information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2026By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2027backtraces.
2028
2029The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2030have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2031DWARF 2 CFI support.
2032
2033* Hosted file I/O.
2034
2035GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2036file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2037remote protocol documentation for details.
2038
2039* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2040
2041All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2042architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2043to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2044ppc32 on ppc64).
2045
2046* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2047
2048GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2049per-thread variables.
2050
2051* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2052
2053GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2054GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2055
2056* Separate debug info.
2057
2058GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2059automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2060of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2061system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2062and optional debug files.
2063
2064* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2065
2066DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2067describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2068debugger.
2069
2070GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2071for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2072
2073* Java
2074
2075A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2076Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2077considered "useable".
2078
85f8f974
DJ
2079* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2080
2081The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2082commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2083kernel.
2084
0fac0b41
DJ
2085* GDB supports logging output to a file
2086
2087There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2088used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2089
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2090* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2091
2092The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2093disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2094command.
2095
e286caf2 2096* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2097
2098The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2099registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2100
d28f9cdf
DJ
2101* Profiling support
2102
2103A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2104be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2105session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2106"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2107data, for more informative profiling results.
2108
da0f9dcd
AC
2109* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2110
2111The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2112option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2113"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2114
2115Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2116removed.
2117
fb9b6b35
JJ
2118Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2119Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2120Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2121 in a subsequent -var-update.
2122
954a4db8
MK
2123* New native configurations.
2124
2125FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2126
6760f9e6
JB
2127* Multi-arched targets.
2128
b4263afa 2129HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2130Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2131
1b831c93
AC
2132* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2133
2134Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2135been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2136configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2137permanently REMOVED.
2138
8b0e5691 2139Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2140Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2141H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2142HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2143HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2144HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2145PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2146Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2147 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2148 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2149Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2150Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2151
5835abe7
NC
2152* REMOVED configurations and files
2153
2154V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2155Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2156IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2157i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2158i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2159i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2160HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2161 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2162 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2163Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2164Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2165Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2166OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2167I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2168
a094c6fb
AC
2169* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2170
2171The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2172the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2173context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2174address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2175The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2176
299ffc64 2177*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2178
46248966
AC
2179* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2180
2181When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2182`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2183in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2184library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2185shared libs like mad''.
2186
b9d14705 2187* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2188
b9d14705
DJ
2189Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2190the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2191arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2192powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2193
e0e9281e
JB
2194* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2195
2196GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2197and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2198they expand.
2199
dd73b9bb
AC
2200The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2201invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2202
2203The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2204macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2205
e0e9281e
JB
2206Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2207information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2208your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2209information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2210
2250ee0c
CV
2211* Multi-arched targets.
2212
6e3ba3b8
JT
2213DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2214DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2215NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2216National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2217Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2218Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2219
cd9bfe15 2220* New targets.
e33ce519 2221
456f8b9d
DB
2222Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2223
e33ce519 2224
da8ca43d
JT
2225* New native configurations
2226
2227Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2228SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2229MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2230UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2231
cd9bfe15
AC
2232* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2233
2234Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2235been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2236configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2237permanently REMOVED.
2238
92eb23c5 2239Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2240OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2241IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2242Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2243Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2244Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2245i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2246i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2247i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2248HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2249 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2250 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2251I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2252
db034ac5
AC
2253* OBSOLETE languages
2254
2255CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2256
cd9bfe15
AC
2257* REMOVED configurations and files
2258
2259AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2260A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2261AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2262AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2263AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2264
2265testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2266
20f01a46
DH
2267* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2268
2269This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2270commands. The default is 1024.
2271
a5941fbf
MK
2272* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2273
2274Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2275
89743e04
MS
2276* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2277
2278These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2279to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2280from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2281
9fb14e79
JB
2282* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2283
2284The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2285including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2286of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2287
2037aebb
AC
2288*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2289
2290* New targets.
2291
2292Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2293
2294* Bug fixes
2295
2296gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2297mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2298Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2299
2300gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2301dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2302Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2303
2304Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2305Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2306By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2307
2308i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2309avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2310By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2311
37057839 2312*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2313
1a703748
MS
2314* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2315
2316This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2317really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2318In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2319target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2320This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2321(notably embedded) targets.
2322
cefd4ef5
MS
2323* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2324
55241689
AC
2325This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2326process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2327GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2328hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2329
352ed7b4
MS
2330* New command line option
2331
2332GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2333
2334* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2335
2336There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2337command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2338a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2339be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2340open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2341issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2342a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2343it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2344GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2345is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2346
fe419ffc
RE
2347* Changes in ARM configurations.
2348
2349Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2350configuration is fully multi-arch.
2351
eb7cedd9
MK
2352* New native configurations
2353
fe419ffc 2354ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2355x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2356AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2357Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2358
c9f63e6b
CV
2359* New targets
2360
2361Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2362
9b4ff276
AC
2363* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2364
2365Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2366been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2367configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2368permanently REMOVED.
2369
2370AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2371A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2372AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2373AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2374AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2375
b4ceaee6 2376testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2377
e2caac18
AC
2378* REMOVED configurations and files
2379
2380TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2381WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2382PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2383PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2384PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2385Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2386Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2387 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2388SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2389Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2390Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2391ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2392Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2393
c2a727fa
TT
2394* Changes to command line processing
2395
2396The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2397for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2398
467d8519
TT
2399* Changes to key bindings
2400
2401There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2402
7072a954
AC
2403*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2404
2405Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2406
2407Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2408corrupted.
2409
2410Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2411
2412Numerous documentation fixes.
2413
2414Numerous testsuite fixes.
2415
34f47bc4 2416*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2417
2418* New native configurations
2419
2420Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2421x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2422MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2423MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2424ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2425s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2426
bf64bfd6
AC
2427* New targets
2428
def90278 2429Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2430CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2431UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2432
17e78a56 2433* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2434
2435x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2436Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2437Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2438 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2439TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2440WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2441Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2442PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2443PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2444PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2445SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2446Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2447ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2448Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2449
17e78a56
AC
2450stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2451kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2452
7fcca85b
AC
2453Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2454been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2455configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2456permanently REMOVED.
2457
a196c81c 2458* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2459
2460Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2461Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2462Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2463ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2464Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2465ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2466
6d6b80e5 2467* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2468
6d6b80e5 2469GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2470sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2471present.
2472
bf64bfd6
AC
2473* Other news:
2474
e23194cb
EZ
2475* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2476
2477* The MI enabled by default.
2478
2479The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2480revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2481engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2482using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2483which is now deprecated.
2484
2485* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2486
2487GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2488main features are supported:
2489
2490 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2491
2492 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2493 extension;
2494
2495 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2496
2497 - a Pascal expression parser.
2498
2499However, some important features are not yet supported.
2500
2501 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2502
2503 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2504
2505 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2506 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2507
2508 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2509
2510 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2511
2512* Changes in completion.
2513
2514Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2515to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2516users expect at the shell prompt.
2517
2518Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2519`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2520program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2521files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2522be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2523considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2524name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2525
2526`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2527
2528* New platform-independent commands:
2529
2530It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2531hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2532documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2533
2534* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2535
d7275149
MK
2536Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2537revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2538many threads as your system allows you to have.
2539
e23194cb
EZ
2540Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2541
d7275149
MK
2542Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2543multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2544
2545* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2546
2547Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2548
e23194cb
EZ
2549GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2550debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2551supported.)
2552
2553* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2554
2555Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2556breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2557implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2558put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2559and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2560registers.
2561
2562The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2563debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2564watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2565
2566* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2567
2568New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2569the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2570
2571New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2572display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2573IDT.
2574
2575New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2576from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2577New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2578a given linear address.
2579
2580GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2581program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2582which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2583
2584DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2585
6c56c069
EZ
2586It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2587
e23194cb
EZ
2588* Changes in documentation.
2589
2590All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2591Documentation License.
2592
2593Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2594manual.
2595
2596TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2597
2598Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2599manual.
2600
2601The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2602documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2603hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2604
5d6640b1
AC
2605* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2606
2607The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2608``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2609contents of this file.
2610
1a1d8446
AC
2611* gdba.el deleted
2612
2613GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2614
9debab2f 2615*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2616
c63ce875
EZ
2617* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2618
2619Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2620programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2621displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2622greater level of detail.
2623
2624* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2625
2626It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2627bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2628on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2629written.
2630
2631* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2632
2633The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2634necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2635machines ``out of the box''.
2636
2637The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2638possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2639signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2640would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2641interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2642
2643It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2644standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2645even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2646and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2647terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2648
2649The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2650enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2651also works.
2652
2653DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2654GDB.
2655
2656It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2657directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2658times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2659breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2660
ed9a39eb
JM
2661* New native configurations
2662
2663ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2664PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2665
7a292a7a
SS
2666* New targets
2667
96baa820 2668Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2669x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2670PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2671TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2672
085dd6e6
JM
2673* OBSOLETE configurations
2674
2675Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2676Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2677Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2678ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2679Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2680
9debab2f
AC
2681Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2682but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2683these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2684be permanently REMOVED.
2685
5330533d
SS
2686* Gould support removed
2687
2688Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2689
bc9e5bbf
AC
2690* New features for SVR4
2691
2692On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2693without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2694load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2695
2696* Many C++ enhancements
2697
2698C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2699in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2700
adf40b2e
JM
2701* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2702
2703A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2704sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2705with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2706``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2707
2708 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2709 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2710
43e526b9
JM
2711* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2712
2713A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2714expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2715instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2716
2717The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2718added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2719
96baa820
JM
2720* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2721
2722The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2723``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2724include ``set remote P-packet''.
2725
11cf8741
JM
2726* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2727
2728The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2729accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2730``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2731
7876dd43
DB
2732* ``apropos'' command added.
2733
2734The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2735documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2736try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2737
bc9e5bbf
AC
2738* New MI interface
2739
2740A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2741interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2742process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2743"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2744enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2745
2746 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2747
c906108c
SS
2748*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2749
2750* New native configurations
2751
2752HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2753HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2754M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2755
2756* New targets
2757
2758Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2759Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2760Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2761
2762* OBSOLETE configurations
2763
2764Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2765
2766Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2767but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2768these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2769be permanently REMOVED.
2770
2771* ANSI/ISO C
2772
2773As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2774buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2775containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2776use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2777available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2778configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2779information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2780already.
2781
2782* Readline 2.2
2783
2784GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2785
2786* set extension-language
2787
2788You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2789languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2790you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2791 set extension-language .c c++
2792The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2793and their associated languages.
2794
2795* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2796
2797When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2798you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2799PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2800
2801 set processor NAME
2802
2803sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2804following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2805
2806 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2807 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2808 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2809 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2810 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2811 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2812 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2813 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2814 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2815 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2816 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2817
2818At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2819special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2820registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2821only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2822
2823* HP-UX support
2824
2825Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2826more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2827library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2828support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2829for xdb and dbx commands.
2830
2831* Catchpoints
2832
2833HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2834generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2835to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2836
2837This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2838argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2839output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2840
2841* Debugging across forks
2842
2843On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2844in the inferior.
2845
2846* TUI
2847
2848HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2849it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2850configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2851
2852* GDB remote protocol additions
2853
2854A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2855Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2856fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2857allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2858
2859For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2860full 64-bit address. The command
2861
2862 set remoteaddresssize 32
2863
2864can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2865the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2866will be discarded.
2867
2868In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2869command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2870
2871 maint packet heythere
2872
2873sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2874disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2875time.
2876
2877The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2878target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2879downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2880
2881* Tracing can collect general expressions
2882
2883You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2884further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2885doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2886
2887* mask-address variable for Mips
2888
2889For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2890a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2891of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2892
2893* Higher serial baud rates
2894
2895GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2896230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2897to achieve all of these rates.)
2898
2899* i960 simulator
2900
2901The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2902builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2903
2904
2905*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2906
2907* New native configurations
2908
2909Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2910Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2911Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2912PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2913PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2914Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2915Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2916
2917* New targets
2918
2919Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2920Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2921Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2922Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2923MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2924MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2925MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2926Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2927Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2928Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2929NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2930
2931* New debugging protocols
2932
2933ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2934M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2935DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2936PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2937PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2938Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2939
2940* DWARF 2
2941
2942All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2943format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2944information.
2945
2946* Java frontend
2947
2948GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2949only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2950
2951* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2952
2953For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2954loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2955locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2956
2957* Live range splitting
2958
2959GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2960range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2961more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2962
2963* Hurd support
2964
2965GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2966updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2967
2968* ARM Thumb support
2969
2970GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2971instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2972instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2973accordingly.
2974
2975* MIPS16 support
2976
2977GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2978instruction set.
2979
2980* Overlay support
2981
2982GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2983linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2984will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2985control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2986additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2987in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2988
2989* info symbol
2990
2991The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2992the symbol at the specified address.
2993
2994* Trace support
2995
2996The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2997asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2998extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2999includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3000file tracepoint.c for more details.
3001
3002* MIPS simulator
3003
3004Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3005by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3006of most MIPS variants.
3007
3008* Sparc simulator
3009
3010Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3011by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3012Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3013
3014* set architecture
3015
3016For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3017basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3018architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3019the possible architectures.
3020
3021*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3022
3023* New native configurations
3024
3025Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3026M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3027PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3028PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3029PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3030RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3031
3032* New targets
3033
3034ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3035I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3036MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3037MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3038PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3039Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3040Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3041
3042* PowerPC simulator
3043
3044The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3045contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3046PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3047basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3048performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3049
3050* Solaris 2.5
3051
3052GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3053
3054* Windows 95/NT native
3055
3056GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3057To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3058which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3059Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3060ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3061
3062* dont-repeat command
3063
3064If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3065command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3066useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3067extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3068
3069* Send break instead of ^C
3070
3071The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3072rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3073GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3074
3075* Remote protocol timeout
3076
3077The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3078that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3079to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3080
3081* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3082
3083By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3084loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3085stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3086when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3087in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3088
3089Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3090/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3091automatically on hpux10.
3092
3093* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3094
3095Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3096
3097* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3098
3099When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3100may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3101the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3102every character. The default value is 1050.
3103
3104* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3105
3106If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3107a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3108replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3109details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3110remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3111to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3112
3113* Speedups for remote debugging
3114
3115GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3116the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3117and more efficient S-record downloading.
3118
3119* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3120
3121GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3122Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3123
3124*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3125
3126* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3127
3128The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3129can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3130
3131* Remote targets use caching
3132
3133Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3134remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3135it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3136debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3137off' turns the the data cache off.
3138
3139* Remote targets may have threads
3140
3141The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3142in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3143gdb/remote.c for details.
3144
3145* NetROM support
3146
3147If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3148support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3149acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3150write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3151support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3152another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3153sequence is something like
3154
3155 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3156 load <prog>
3157 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3158
3159* Macintosh host
3160
3161GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3162may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3163it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3164available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3165device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3166directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3167scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3168mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3169
3170* Autoconf
3171
3172GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3173but does simplify configuration and building.
3174
3175* hpux10
3176
3177GDB now supports hpux10.
3178
3179*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3180
3181* New native configurations
3182
3183x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3184x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3185NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3186Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3187
3188* New targets
3189
3190A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3191HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3192CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3193PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3194WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3195
3196* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3197
3198GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3199possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3200filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3201the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3202if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3203
3204* Arguments to user-defined commands
3205
3206User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3207Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3208trivial example:
3209define adder
3210 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3211
3212To execute the command use:
3213adder 1 2 3
3214
3215Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3216Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3217use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3218
3219* New `if' and `while' commands
3220
3221This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3222commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3223expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3224execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3225terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3226`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3227if the expression is zero.
3228
3229* Fortran source language mode
3230
3231GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3232Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3233variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3234with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3235Fortran compilers.
3236
3237* Better HPUX support
3238
3239Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3240running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3241processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3242for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3243that behavior do the following before running the program:
3244
3245 adb -w a.out
3246 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3247 control-d
3248
3249This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3250To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3251
3252 adb -w a.out
3253 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3254 control-d
3255
3256You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3257the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3258external linkage.
3259
3260GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3261HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3262
3263* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3264
3265You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3266commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3267current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3268"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3269associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3270configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3271
3272* New DOS host serial code
3273
3274This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3275no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3276a PC's serial port.
3277
3278*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3279
3280* New "complete" command
3281
3282This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3283were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3284
3285* Trailing space optional in prompt
3286
3287"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3288allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3289
3290* Breakpoint hit counts
3291
3292"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3293has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3294can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3295to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3296less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3297that breakpoint.
3298
3299* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3300
3301"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3302an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3303arrays actually contain only short strings.
3304
3305* Shared library breakpoints
3306
3307In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3308breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3309
3310* Hardware watchpoints
3311
3312There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3313targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3314
55241689 3315Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3316
3317* Annotations
3318
3319Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3320and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3321
3322* Improved Irix 5 support
3323
3324GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3325
3326* Improved HPPA support
3327
3328GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3329
3330* New native configurations
3331
3332Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3333HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3334Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3335RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3336
3337* New targets
3338
3339OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3340MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3341Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3342
3343* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3344
3345There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3346This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3347
3348* Fixes
3349
3350As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3351and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3352
3353*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3354
3355* Irix 5 is now supported
3356
3357* HPPA support
3358
3359GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3360to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3361GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3362of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3363can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3364
3365
3366*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3367
3368* User visible changes:
3369
3370* Remote Debugging
3371
3372The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3373target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3374debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3375integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3376debugging info for the mips target).
3377
3378* DEC Alpha native support
3379
3380GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3381debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3382work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3383Alpha-specific notes.
3384
3385* Preliminary thread implementation
3386
3387GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3388
3389* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3390
3391This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3392to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3393for details).
3394
3395* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3396
3397This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3398mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3399call methods, ...etc.
3400
3401*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3402
3403 * User visible changes:
3404
3405Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3406supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3407other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3408somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3409
3410Filename completion now works.
3411
3412When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3413arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3414addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3415
3416All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3417vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3418should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3419your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3420to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3421
3422 * DEC alpha support
3423
3424This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3425cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3426
3427
3428*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3429
3430 * Testsuite
3431
3432This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3433The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3434via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3435
3436 * C++ demangling
3437
3438'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3439emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3440Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3441disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3442use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3443
3444 * Simulators
3445
3446GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3447So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3448Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3449
3450 * New targets supported
3451
3452H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3453H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3454SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3455Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3456IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3457
3458Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3459version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3460GO32 memory extender.
3461
3462 * New remote protocols
3463
3464MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3465
3466 * New source languages supported
3467
3468This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3469used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3470into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3471
3472
3473*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3474
3475 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3476
3477GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3478version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3479University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3480compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3481format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3482(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3483
3484Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3485
3486 * Faster and better demangling
3487
3488We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3489demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3490character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3491only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3492This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3493increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3494symbol lookups.
3495
3496`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3497from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3498compiler does not actually implement.
3499
3500 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3501
3502In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3503inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3504recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3505very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3506The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3507circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3508fix.
3509
3510The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3511release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3512
3513 * Improved configure script
3514
3515The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3516you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3517host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3518done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3519
3520We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3521version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3522`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3523The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3524only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3525We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3526
3527 * Documentation improvements
3528
3529There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3530produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3531before submitting changes.
3532
3533The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3534M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3535`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3536you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3537a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3538
3539*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3540We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3541been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3542or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3543`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3544around this problem.
3545
3546 * New features
3547
3548GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3549the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3550`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3551the target program.
3552
3553The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3554how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3555
3556 * New native hosts supported
3557
3558HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3559386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3560
3561 * New targets supported
3562
3563AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3564
3565 * New file formats supported
3566
3567BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3568HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3569
3570 * Major bug fixes
3571
3572Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3573
3574We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3575printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3576
3577We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3578for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3579release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3580
3581You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3582will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3583
3584We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3585for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3586especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3587libraries.
3588
3589The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3590information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3591command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3592any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3593when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3594
3595 * Internal improvements
3596
3597GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3598debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3599
3600GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3601Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3602symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3603contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3604shared code that handles any of them.
3605
3606 * New command line options
3607
3608We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3609
3610 * Mmalloc licensing
3611
3612The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3613General Public License.
3614
3615*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3616
3617 * Host/native/target split
3618
3619GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3620hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3621target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3622local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3623ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3624
3625The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3626GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3627is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3628code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3629any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3630built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3631handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3632
3633GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3634It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3635plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3636
3637 * New hosts supported
3638
3639HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3640386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3641386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3642
3643 * New targets supported
3644
3645Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
364668030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3647
3648 * New native hosts supported
3649
3650386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3651 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3652386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3653
3654 * New file formats supported
3655
3656BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3657supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3658format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3659
3660 * New commands
3661
3662`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3663`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3664These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3665
3666`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3667
3668You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3669scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3670prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3671executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3672
3673 * C++ improvements
3674
3675We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3676info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3677symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3678
3679Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3680
3681 * Major bug fixes
3682
3683The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3684fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3685by the compiler.
3686
3687We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3688support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3689
3690John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3691slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3692that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3693purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3694the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3695mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3696
3697Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3698about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3699completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3700we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3701
3702 * AMD 29k support
3703
3704A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3705specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3706calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3707usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3708in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3709
3710We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3711Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3712of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3713resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3714
3715 * Remote interfaces
3716
3717We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3718with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3719message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3720This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3721needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3722breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3723each instruction being stepped through.
3724
3725The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3726registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3727
3728There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3729find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3730Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3731processor with a serial port.
3732
3733 * Configuration
3734
3735Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3736`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3737supported, and what files each one uses.
3738
3739 * Library changes
3740
3741There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3742disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3743Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3744disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3745
3746The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3747Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3748can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3749grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3750
3751 * Documentation
3752
3753The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3754reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3755as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3756encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3757system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3758bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3759
3760And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3761
3762
3763*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3764
3765 * Better support for C++ function names
3766
3767GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3768names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3769(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3770single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3771Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3772
3773GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3774the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3775You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3776lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3777for the list of formats.
3778
3779 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3780
3781Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3782C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3783directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3784can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3785usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3786about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3787this problem.)
3788
3789 * New 'maintenance' command
3790
3791All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3792the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3793can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3794
3795 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3796 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3797 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3798 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3799 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3800 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3801
3802The following commands are new:
3803
3804 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3805 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3806 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3807
3808 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3809
3810We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3811(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3812be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3813read after argv processing.
3814
3815 * New hosts supported
3816
3817Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3818
55241689 3819GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3820
3821We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3822is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3823for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3824masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3825fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3826It costs extra.
3827
3828 * New targets supported
3829
3830Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3831
3832 * More smarts about finding #include files
3833
3834GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3835all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3836greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3837especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3838the one that contains your sources.
3839
3840We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3841breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3842try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3843
3844 * Interesting infernals change
3845
3846GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3847section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3848target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3849stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3850
3851 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3852
3853There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3854 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3855 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3856
3857See the ChangeLog for details.
3858
3859*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3860
3861 * New machines supported (host and target)
3862
3863IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3864
3865SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3866
3867 * New malloc package
3868
3869GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3870Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3871capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3872This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3873pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3874more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3875
3876 * info proc
3877
3878The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3879'help info proc' for details.
3880
3881 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3882
3883The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3884Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3885possible.
3886
3887 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3888
3889Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3890support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3891conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3892environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3893that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3894in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3895
3896 * Cross byte order fixes
3897
3898Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3899targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3900
3901 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3902
3903If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3904system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3905`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3906program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3907called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3908Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3909and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3910the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3911option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3912starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3913
3914You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3915the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3916information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3917slower, but makes future operations faster.
3918
3919The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3920build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3921A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3922use is:
3923
3924 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3925
3926The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3927It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3928shared across multiple host platforms.
3929
3930 * longjmp() handling
3931
3932GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3933siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3934all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3935platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3936
3937 * Solaris 2.0
3938
3939Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3940this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3941reading symbols.
3942
3943 * Bug fixes
3944
3945As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3946People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3947crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3948
3949*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3950
3951 * New machines supported (host and target)
3952
3953SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3954 (except core files)
3955BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3956Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3957
3958 * New machines supported (target)
3959
3960AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3961
3962 * C++ support
3963
3964GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3965The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3966per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3967
3968GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3969`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3970extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3971good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3972will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3973released.
3974
3975 * New features for SVR4
3976
3977GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3978shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3979only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3980
3981The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3982on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3983it prints the address mappings of the process.
3984
3985If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3986bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3987
3988 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3989
3990Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3991now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3992skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3993make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3994same code linked statically.
3995
3996 * New Getopt
3997
3998GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3999version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4000continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4001Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4002added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4003future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4004
4005 * Bugs fixed
4006
4007The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4008Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4009See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4010
4011
4012*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4013
4014 * New machines supported (host and target)
4015
4016Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4017NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4018Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4019
4020 * Almost SCO Unix support
4021
4022We had hoped to support:
4023SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4024(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4025that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4026about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4027
4028 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4029
4030GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4031debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4032is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4033send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4034reqired (if any).
4035
4036 * New Readline
4037
4038GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4039is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4040required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4041
4042 * Bugs fixed
4043
4044The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4045Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4046See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4047
4048 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4049
4050GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4051supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4052symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4053
4054Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4055mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4056debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4057mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4058version 2.
4059
4060Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4061really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4062line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4063variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4064situation somewhat.
4065
4066When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4067However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4068methods.
4069
4070We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4071DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4072encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4073
4074
4075*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4076
4077 * Improved configuration
4078
4079Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4080Porting BFD is simpler.
4081
4082 * Stepping improved
4083
4084The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4085of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4086in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4087function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4088
4089 * Bug fixing
4090
4091Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4092
4093 * New host supported (not target)
4094
4095Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4096
4097
4098*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4099
4100 * Multiple source language support
4101
4102GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4103It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4104and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4105language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4106You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4107`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4108
4109 * GDB and Modula-2
4110
4111GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4112currently under development at the State University of New York at
4113Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4114continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4115
4116Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4117debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4118symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4119
4120There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4121in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4122
4123 * set write on/off
4124
4125GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4126a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4127the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4128by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4129effect immediately.
4130
4131 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4132
4133When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4134shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4135The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4136examining core files.
4137
4138 * set listsize
4139
4140You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4141The default is 10.
4142
4143 * New machines supported (host and target)
4144
4145SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4146Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4147Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4148
4149 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4150
4151IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4152
4153 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4154
4155AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4156AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4157Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4158
4159 * New remote interfaces
4160
4161AMD 29000 Adapt
4162AMD 29000 Minimon
4163
4164
4165*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4166
4167 * New Facilities
4168
4169Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4170
4171Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4172target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4173is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4174remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4175remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4176also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4177using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4178stub on the target system.
4179
4180New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4181
4182GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4183library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4184object file types such as a.out and coff.
4185
4186There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4187refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4188
4189
4190 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4191
4192All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4193by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4194
4195For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4196``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4197Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4198
4199What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4200print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4201will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4202all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4203
4204confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4205 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4206 it is already running. Default is ON.
4207
4208editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4209 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4210 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4211 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4212 Default is ON.
4213
4214history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4215 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4216 or the value of the environment variable
4217 GDBHISTFILE.
4218
4219history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4220 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4221 HISTSIZE.
4222
4223history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4224 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4225 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4226
4227history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4228 history expansion will be performed on
4229 command line input. The default is OFF.
4230
4231radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4232 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4233 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4234
4235height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4236 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4237 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4238 variable TERM.
4239
4240width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4241 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4242 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4243 variable TERM.
4244
4245Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4246``set width'' instead.
4247
4248print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4249 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4250 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4251 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4252
4253print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4254 is OFF.
4255
4256print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4257 "raw" form if off.
4258
4259print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4260 like instructions.
4261
4262print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4263
4264
4265 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4266
4267The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4268new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4269are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4270window.
4271
4272
4273 * Support for Shared Libraries
4274
4275GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4276Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4277before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4278happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4279At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4280from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4281shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4282It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4283
4284sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4285 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4286 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4287
4288info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4289
4290
4291 * Watchpoints
4292
4293A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4294expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4295tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4296quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4297problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4298more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4299
4300watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4301
4302info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4303
4304delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4305disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4306enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4307
4308
4309 * C++ multiple inheritance
4310
4311When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4312for C++ programs.
4313
4314 * C++ exception handling
4315
4316Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4317ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4318the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4319handler's context).
4320
4321catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4322 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4323 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4324
4325info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4326 current stack frame.
4327
4328
4329 * Minor command changes
4330
4331The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4332command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4333is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4334
4335The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4336at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4337frames without printing.
4338
4339 * New directory command
4340
4341'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4342The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4343about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4344with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4345find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4346
4347 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4348
4349For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4350for more details.
4351
4352GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4353two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4354Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4355where the program that you are debugging will run.
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