* copyright.sh: Clarify error.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
6* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
8
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9* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1032-bit or 64-bit register values.
11
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12* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
13
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14* New commands
15
16set mem inaccessible-by-default
17show mem inaccessible-by-default
18 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
19 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
20 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
21 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
22 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
23
24set breakpoint auto-hw
25show breakpoint auto-hw
26 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
27 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
28 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
29 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
30 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
31 including "next" and "finish".
32
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33catch exception
34catch exception unhandled
35 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
36
37catch assert
38 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
39
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40set sysroot
41show sysroot
42 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
43 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
44 an alias to "set sysroot".
45
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46* New native configurations
47
48OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
49
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50* New targets
51
54fe9172 52OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
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53MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
54
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55* New remote packets
56
57QPassSignals:
58 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
59 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
60
61
62*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 63
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64* New targets
65
66Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 67Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 68
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69* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
70(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
71running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
72
73* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
74Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
75supported.
76
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77* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
78broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
79
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80* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
81longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
82
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83* New commands
84
85set substitute-path
86unset substitute-path
87show substitute-path
88 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
89 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
90 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
91 between compilation and debugging.
92
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93set trace-commands
94show trace-commands
95 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
96 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
97 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
98
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99* REMOVED features
100
101The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
102
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103Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
104an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
105
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106The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
107
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108* New remote packets
109
110qSupported:
111 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
112 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
113 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
114 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
115 target.
116
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117qXfer:auxv:read:
118 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
119 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
120
121* Removed remote packets
122
123qPart:auxv:read:
124 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
125 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
126
e374b601 127*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 128
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129* New targets
130
131Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
132
133Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
134
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135* New commands
136
137init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
138 only if it doesn't already have a value.
139
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140The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
141
142checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
143
144restart <n> Return the program state to a
145 previously saved state.
146
147info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
148
149delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
150
151set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
152 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
153
154info forks List forks of the user program that
155 are available to be debugged.
156
157fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
158 forks of the user program that are
159 available to be debugged.
160
161delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
162 that are available to be debugged (and
163 kill the forked process).
164
165detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
166 that are available to be debugged (and
167 allow the process to continue).
168
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169* New architecture
170
171Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
172
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173* Improved Windows host support
174
175GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
176native console support, and remote communications using either
177network sockets or serial ports.
178
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179* Improved Modula-2 language support
180
181GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
182basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
183pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
184printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
185written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
186GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
187
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188* REMOVED features
189
190The ARM rdi-share module.
191
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192The Netware NLM debug server.
193
53e5f3cf 194*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 195
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196* New native configurations
197
02a677ac 198OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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199OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
200
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201* New targets
202
203Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
204
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205* New command line options
206
207--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
208--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
209 the child (debugged) program exited with.
210--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
211 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
212 specified multiple times and in conjunction
213 with the --command (-x) option.
214
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215* Deprecated commands removed
216
217The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
218removed:
219
220 Command Replacement
221 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
222 othernames set arm disassembler
223 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
224 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
225 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
226 regs info registers
227
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228* New BSD user-level threads support
229
230It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
231library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
232configurations are:
233
234FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
235FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
236OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
237
238Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
239are not yet supported.
240
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241* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
242(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
243
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244* REMOVED configurations and files
245
246VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 247Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 248National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 249
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250* New "set print array-indexes" command
251
252After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
253when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
254behavior.
255
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256* VAX floating point support
257
258GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
259
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260* User-defined command support
261
262In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
263to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
264section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
265
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266*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
267
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268* New command line option
269
270GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
271debugging.
272
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273* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
274
275GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
276information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
277by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
278proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
279to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 280
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281* Internationalization
282
283When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
284internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
285continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
286
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287* Ada
288
289Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
290implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
291into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
292
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293* New native configurations
294
295GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
296
297* Remote 'p' packet
298
299GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
300packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
301
302* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
303
304GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
305The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
306features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
307i386 application).
308
309GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
310compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
311continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
312configurations:
313
314hppa-*-hpux
315ia64-*-aix
316mips-*-irix*
317*-*-lynx
318mips-*-linux-gnu
319sds protocol
320xdr protocol
321powerpc bdm protocol
322
323Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
324made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
325
326* OBSOLETE configurations and files
327
328Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
329been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
330configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
331permanently REMOVED.
332
333h8300-*-*
334mcore-*-*
335mn10300-*-*
336ns32k-*-*
337sh64-*-*
338v850-*-*
339
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340*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
341
342* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
343
344When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
345heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
346been fixed.
347
348* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
349
350When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
351fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
352IRIX long double values).
353
354* VAX and "next"
355
356A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
357command. This problem has been fixed.
358
860660cb 359*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 360
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361* Fix for ``many threads''
362
363On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
364rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
365error message:
366
367 ptrace: No such process.
368 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
369
370This problem has been fixed.
371
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372* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
373
374Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
375GDB to dump core).
376
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377* New ``start'' command.
378
379This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
380
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381* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
382
383Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
384live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
385platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
386
387FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
388FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
389NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
390NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
391NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
392OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
393OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
394OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
395OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
396
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397* Signal trampoline code overhauled
398
399Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
400These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
401of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
402call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
403signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
404
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405Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
406features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
407include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 408
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409* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
410
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411* New native configurations
412
97dc871c 413GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 414OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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415OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
416OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 417OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 418NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 419OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 420
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421* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
422
423GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
424The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
425including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
426migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
427compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
428work, was also included.
429
430GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
431module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
432
433h8300-*-*
434mcore-*-*
435mn10300-*-*
436ns32k-*-*
437sh64-*-*
438v850-*-*
439xstormy16-*-*
440
441Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
442made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
443
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444* REMOVED configurations and files
445
446Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
447Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
448Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
449Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
450Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
451AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
452Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
453decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
454riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
455sonymips mips-sony-*
456sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
457
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458*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
459
460* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
461
462The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
463GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
464command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
465program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
466with GDB".
467
468* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
469
470Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
471libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
472cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
473GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
474shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
475the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
476are created.
477
478Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
479
480* Fixed ISO-C build problems
481
482The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
483non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
484compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
485
486* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
487
488Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
489wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
490
491* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
492
493The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
494permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
495systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
496
497* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
498
499Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
500has been updated to use constant array sizes.
501
502* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
503
504GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
505its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
506panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
507
508* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
509
510When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
511by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
512not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
513
faae5abe 514*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 515
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516* Removed --with-mmalloc
517
518Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
519conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
520
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521* Changes in AMD64 configurations
522
523The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
524the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
525and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
526you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
527
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528* Revised SPARC target
529
530The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
531FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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532support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
533from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
534(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 535
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536* New C++ demangler
537
538GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
539names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
540with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
541programs.
542
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543* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
544
545GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
546arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
547encountered these.
548
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549* C++ nested types and namespaces
550
551GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
552improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
553is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
554Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
555namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
556"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
557frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
558if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
559GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
560
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561* New native configurations
562
563NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 564OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 565OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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566OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
567OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 568
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569* New debugging protocols
570
571M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
572
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573* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
574
575The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
576and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
577tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
578
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579* OBSOLETE configurations and files
580
581Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
582been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
583configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
584permanently REMOVED.
585
586Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
587Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
588Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
589Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
590Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
591AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
592Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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593decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
594riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
595sonymips mips-sony-*
596sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 597
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598* REMOVED configurations and files
599
600SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
601SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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602Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
603Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
604H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
605HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
606HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
607HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
608PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 609386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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610Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
611 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
612 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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613SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
614SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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615Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
616Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 617
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618*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
619
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620* Objective-C
621
622Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
623integrated into GDB.
624
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625* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
626
627DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
628information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
629By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
630backtraces.
631
632The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
633have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
634DWARF 2 CFI support.
635
636* Hosted file I/O.
637
638GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
639file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
640remote protocol documentation for details.
641
642* All targets using the new architecture framework.
643
644All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
645architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
646to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
647ppc32 on ppc64).
648
649* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
650
651GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
652per-thread variables.
653
654* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
655
656GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
657GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
658
659* Separate debug info.
660
661GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
662automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
663of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
664system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
665and optional debug files.
666
667* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
668
669DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
670describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
671debugger.
672
673GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
674for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
675
676* Java
677
678A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
679Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
680considered "useable".
681
85f8f974
DJ
682* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
683
684The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
685commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
686kernel.
687
0fac0b41
DJ
688* GDB supports logging output to a file
689
690There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
691used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 692
6ad8ae5c
DJ
693* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
694
695The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
696disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
697command.
698
e286caf2 699* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
700
701The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
702registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
703
d28f9cdf
DJ
704* Profiling support
705
706A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
707be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
708session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
709"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
710data, for more informative profiling results.
711
da0f9dcd
AC
712* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
713
714The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
715option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 716"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
717
718Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
719removed.
720
fb9b6b35
JJ
721Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
722Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
723Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
724 in a subsequent -var-update.
725
954a4db8
MK
726* New native configurations.
727
728FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
729
6760f9e6
JB
730* Multi-arched targets.
731
b4263afa 732HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 733Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 734
1b831c93
AC
735* OBSOLETE configurations and files
736
737Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
738been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
739configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
740permanently REMOVED.
741
8b0e5691 742Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 743Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 744H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
745HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
746HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
747HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 748PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
749Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
750 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
751 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
752Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
753Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 754
5835abe7
NC
755* REMOVED configurations and files
756
757V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
758Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
759IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
760i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
761i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
762i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
763HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
764 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
765 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
766Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
767Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
768Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
769OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
770I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 771
a094c6fb
AC
772* MIPS $fp behavior changed
773
774The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
775the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
776context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
777address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
778The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
779
299ffc64 780*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 781
46248966
AC
782* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
783
784When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
785`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
786in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
787library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
788shared libs like mad''.
789
b9d14705 790* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 791
b9d14705
DJ
792Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
793the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
794arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
795powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 796
e0e9281e
JB
797* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
798
799GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
800and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
801they expand.
802
dd73b9bb
AC
803The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
804invocations in expression, and shows the result.
805
806The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
807macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
808
e0e9281e
JB
809Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
810information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
811your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
812information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
813
2250ee0c
CV
814* Multi-arched targets.
815
6e3ba3b8
JT
816DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
817DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 818NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 819National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
820Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
821Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 822
cd9bfe15 823* New targets.
e33ce519 824
456f8b9d
DB
825Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
826
e33ce519 827
da8ca43d
JT
828* New native configurations
829
830Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 831SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 832MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 833UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 834
cd9bfe15
AC
835* OBSOLETE configurations and files
836
837Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
838been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
839configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
840permanently REMOVED.
841
92eb23c5 842Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 843OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 844IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 845Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 846Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 847Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
848i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
849i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
850i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
851HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
852 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
853 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 854I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 855
db034ac5
AC
856* OBSOLETE languages
857
858CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
859
cd9bfe15
AC
860* REMOVED configurations and files
861
862AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
863A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
864AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
865AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
866AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
867
868testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
869
20f01a46
DH
870* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
871
872This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
873commands. The default is 1024.
874
a5941fbf
MK
875* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
876
877Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
878
89743e04
MS
879* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
880
881These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
882to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
883from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 884
9fb14e79
JB
885* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
886
887The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
888including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
889of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
890
2037aebb
AC
891*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
892
893* New targets.
894
895Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
896
897* Bug fixes
898
899gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
900mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
901Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
902
903gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
904dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
905Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
906
907Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
908Surprisingly enough, it works now.
909By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
910
911i386 hardware watchpoint support:
912avoid misses on second run for some targets.
913By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
914
37057839 915*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 916
1a703748
MS
917* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
918
919This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
920really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
921In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
922target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
923This can be a significant performance improvement on some
924(notably embedded) targets.
925
cefd4ef5
MS
926* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
927
55241689
AC
928This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
929process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
930GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
931hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 932
352ed7b4
MS
933* New command line option
934
935GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
936
937* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
938
939There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
940command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
941a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
942be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
943open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
944issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
945a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
946it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
947GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
948is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
949
fe419ffc
RE
950* Changes in ARM configurations.
951
952Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
953configuration is fully multi-arch.
954
eb7cedd9
MK
955* New native configurations
956
fe419ffc 957ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 958x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 959AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 960Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 961
c9f63e6b
CV
962* New targets
963
964Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
965
9b4ff276
AC
966* OBSOLETE configurations and files
967
968Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
969been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
970configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
971permanently REMOVED.
972
973AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
974A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
975AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
976AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
977AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
978
b4ceaee6 979testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 980
e2caac18
AC
981* REMOVED configurations and files
982
983TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 984WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
985PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
986PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
987PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 988Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
989Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
990 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 991SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 992Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
993Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
994ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 995Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 996
c2a727fa
TT
997* Changes to command line processing
998
999The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1000for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1001
467d8519
TT
1002* Changes to key bindings
1003
1004There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1005
7072a954
AC
1006*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1007
1008Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1009
1010Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1011corrupted.
1012
1013Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1014
1015Numerous documentation fixes.
1016
1017Numerous testsuite fixes.
1018
34f47bc4 1019*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1020
1021* New native configurations
1022
1023Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1024x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1025MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1026MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1027ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1028s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1029
bf64bfd6
AC
1030* New targets
1031
def90278 1032Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1033CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1034UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1035
17e78a56 1036* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1037
1038x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1039Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1040Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1041 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1042TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1043WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1044Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1045PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1046PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1047PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1048SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1049Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1050ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1051Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1052
17e78a56
AC
1053stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1054kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1055
7fcca85b
AC
1056Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1057been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1058configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1059permanently REMOVED.
1060
a196c81c 1061* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1062
1063Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1064Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1065Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1066ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1067Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1068ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1069
6d6b80e5 1070* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1071
6d6b80e5 1072GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1073sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1074present.
1075
bf64bfd6
AC
1076* Other news:
1077
e23194cb
EZ
1078* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1079
1080* The MI enabled by default.
1081
1082The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1083revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1084engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1085using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1086which is now deprecated.
1087
1088* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1089
1090GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1091main features are supported:
1092
1093 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1094
1095 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1096 extension;
1097
1098 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1099
1100 - a Pascal expression parser.
1101
1102However, some important features are not yet supported.
1103
1104 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1105
1106 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1107
1108 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1109 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1110
1111 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1112
1113 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1114
1115* Changes in completion.
1116
1117Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1118to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1119users expect at the shell prompt.
1120
1121Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1122`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1123program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1124files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1125be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1126considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1127name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1128
1129`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1130
1131* New platform-independent commands:
1132
1133It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1134hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1135documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1136
1137* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1138
d7275149
MK
1139Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1140revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1141many threads as your system allows you to have.
1142
e23194cb
EZ
1143Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1144
d7275149
MK
1145Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1146multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1147
1148* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1149
1150Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1151
e23194cb
EZ
1152GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1153debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1154supported.)
1155
1156* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1157
1158Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1159breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1160implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1161put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1162and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1163registers.
1164
1165The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1166debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1167watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1168
1169* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1170
1171New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1172the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1173
1174New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1175display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1176IDT.
1177
1178New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1179from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1180New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1181a given linear address.
1182
1183GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1184program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1185which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1186
1187DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1188
6c56c069
EZ
1189It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1190
e23194cb
EZ
1191* Changes in documentation.
1192
1193All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1194Documentation License.
1195
1196Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1197manual.
1198
1199TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1200
1201Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1202manual.
1203
1204The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1205documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1206hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1207
5d6640b1
AC
1208* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1209
1210The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1211``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1212contents of this file.
1213
1a1d8446
AC
1214* gdba.el deleted
1215
1216GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1217
9debab2f 1218*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1219
c63ce875
EZ
1220* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1221
1222Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1223programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1224displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1225greater level of detail.
1226
1227* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1228
1229It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1230bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1231on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1232written.
1233
1234* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1235
1236The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1237necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1238machines ``out of the box''.
1239
1240The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1241possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1242signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1243would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1244interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1245
1246It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1247standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1248even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1249and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1250terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1251
1252The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1253enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1254also works.
1255
1256DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1257GDB.
1258
1259It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1260directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1261times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1262breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1263
ed9a39eb
JM
1264* New native configurations
1265
1266ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1267PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1268
7a292a7a
SS
1269* New targets
1270
96baa820 1271Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1272x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1273PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1274TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1275
085dd6e6
JM
1276* OBSOLETE configurations
1277
1278Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1279Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1280Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1281ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1282Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1283
9debab2f
AC
1284Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1285but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1286these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1287be permanently REMOVED.
1288
5330533d
SS
1289* Gould support removed
1290
1291Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1292
bc9e5bbf
AC
1293* New features for SVR4
1294
1295On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1296without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1297load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1298
1299* Many C++ enhancements
1300
1301C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1302in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1303
adf40b2e
JM
1304* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1305
1306A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1307sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1308with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1309``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1310
1311 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1312 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1313
43e526b9
JM
1314* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1315
1316A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1317expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1318instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1319
1320The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1321added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1322
96baa820
JM
1323* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1324
1325The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1326``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1327include ``set remote P-packet''.
1328
11cf8741
JM
1329* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1330
1331The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1332accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1333``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1334
7876dd43
DB
1335* ``apropos'' command added.
1336
1337The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1338documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1339try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1340
bc9e5bbf
AC
1341* New MI interface
1342
1343A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1344interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1345process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1346"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1347enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1348
1349 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1350
c906108c
SS
1351*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1352
1353* New native configurations
1354
1355HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1356HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1357M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1358
1359* New targets
1360
1361Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1362Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1363Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1364
1365* OBSOLETE configurations
1366
1367Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1368
1369Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1370but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1371these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1372be permanently REMOVED.
1373
1374* ANSI/ISO C
1375
1376As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1377buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1378containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1379use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1380available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1381configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1382information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1383already.
1384
1385* Readline 2.2
1386
1387GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1388
1389* set extension-language
1390
1391You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1392languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1393you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1394 set extension-language .c c++
1395The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1396and their associated languages.
1397
1398* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1399
1400When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1401you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1402PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1403
1404 set processor NAME
1405
1406sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1407following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1408
1409 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1410 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1411 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1412 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1413 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1414 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1415 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1416 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1417 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1418 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1419 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1420
1421At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1422special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1423registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1424only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1425
1426* HP-UX support
1427
1428Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1429more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1430library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1431support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1432for xdb and dbx commands.
1433
1434* Catchpoints
1435
1436HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1437generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1438to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1439
1440This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1441argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1442output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1443
1444* Debugging across forks
1445
1446On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1447in the inferior.
1448
1449* TUI
1450
1451HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1452it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1453configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1454
1455* GDB remote protocol additions
1456
1457A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1458Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1459fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1460allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1461
1462For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1463full 64-bit address. The command
1464
1465 set remoteaddresssize 32
1466
1467can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1468the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1469will be discarded.
1470
1471In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1472command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1473
1474 maint packet heythere
1475
1476sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1477disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1478time.
1479
1480The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1481target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1482downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1483
1484* Tracing can collect general expressions
1485
1486You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1487further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1488doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1489
1490* mask-address variable for Mips
1491
1492For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1493a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1494of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1495
1496* Higher serial baud rates
1497
1498GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1499230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1500to achieve all of these rates.)
1501
1502* i960 simulator
1503
1504The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1505builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1506
1507
1508*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1509
1510* New native configurations
1511
1512Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1513Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1514Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1515PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1516PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1517Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1518Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1519
1520* New targets
1521
1522Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1523Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1524Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1525Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1526MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1527MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1528MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1529Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1530Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1531Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1532NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1533
1534* New debugging protocols
1535
1536ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1537M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1538DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1539PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1540PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1541Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1542
1543* DWARF 2
1544
1545All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1546format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1547information.
1548
1549* Java frontend
1550
1551GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1552only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1553
1554* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1555
1556For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1557loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1558locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1559
1560* Live range splitting
1561
1562GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1563range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1564more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1565
1566* Hurd support
1567
1568GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1569updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1570
1571* ARM Thumb support
1572
1573GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1574instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1575instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1576accordingly.
1577
1578* MIPS16 support
1579
1580GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1581instruction set.
1582
1583* Overlay support
1584
1585GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1586linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1587will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1588control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1589additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1590in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1591
1592* info symbol
1593
1594The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1595the symbol at the specified address.
1596
1597* Trace support
1598
1599The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1600asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1601extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1602includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1603file tracepoint.c for more details.
1604
1605* MIPS simulator
1606
1607Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1608by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1609of most MIPS variants.
1610
1611* Sparc simulator
1612
1613Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1614by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1615Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1616
1617* set architecture
1618
1619For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1620basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1621architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1622the possible architectures.
1623
1624*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1625
1626* New native configurations
1627
1628Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1629M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1630PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1631PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1632PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1633RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1634
1635* New targets
1636
1637ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1638I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1639MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1640MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1641PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1642Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1643Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1644
1645* PowerPC simulator
1646
1647The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1648contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1649PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1650basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1651performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1652
1653* Solaris 2.5
1654
1655GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1656
1657* Windows 95/NT native
1658
1659GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1660To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1661which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1662Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1663ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1664
1665* dont-repeat command
1666
1667If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1668command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1669useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1670extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1671
1672* Send break instead of ^C
1673
1674The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1675rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1676GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1677
1678* Remote protocol timeout
1679
1680The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1681that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1682to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1683
1684* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1685
1686By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1687loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1688stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1689when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1690in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1691
1692Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1693/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1694automatically on hpux10.
1695
1696* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1697
1698Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1699
1700* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1701
1702When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1703may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1704the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1705every character. The default value is 1050.
1706
1707* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1708
1709If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1710a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1711replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1712details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1713remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1714to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1715
1716* Speedups for remote debugging
1717
1718GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1719the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1720and more efficient S-record downloading.
1721
1722* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1723
1724GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1725Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1726
1727*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1728
1729* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1730
1731The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1732can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1733
1734* Remote targets use caching
1735
1736Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1737remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1738it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1739debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1740off' turns the the data cache off.
1741
1742* Remote targets may have threads
1743
1744The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1745in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1746gdb/remote.c for details.
1747
1748* NetROM support
1749
1750If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1751support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1752acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1753write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1754support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1755another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1756sequence is something like
1757
1758 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1759 load <prog>
1760 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1761
1762* Macintosh host
1763
1764GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1765may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1766it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1767available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1768device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1769directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1770scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1771mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1772
1773* Autoconf
1774
1775GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1776but does simplify configuration and building.
1777
1778* hpux10
1779
1780GDB now supports hpux10.
1781
1782*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1783
1784* New native configurations
1785
1786x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1787x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1788NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1789Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1790
1791* New targets
1792
1793A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1794HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1795CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1796PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1797WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1798
1799* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1800
1801GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1802possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1803filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1804the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1805if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1806
1807* Arguments to user-defined commands
1808
1809User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1810Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1811trivial example:
1812define adder
1813 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1814
1815To execute the command use:
1816adder 1 2 3
1817
1818Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1819Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1820use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1821
1822* New `if' and `while' commands
1823
1824This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1825commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1826expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1827execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1828terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1829`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1830if the expression is zero.
1831
1832* Fortran source language mode
1833
1834GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1835Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1836variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1837with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1838Fortran compilers.
1839
1840* Better HPUX support
1841
1842Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1843running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1844processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1845for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1846that behavior do the following before running the program:
1847
1848 adb -w a.out
1849 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1850 control-d
1851
1852This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1853To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1854
1855 adb -w a.out
1856 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1857 control-d
1858
1859You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1860the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1861external linkage.
1862
1863GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1864HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1865
1866* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1867
1868You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1869commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1870current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1871"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1872associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1873configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1874
1875* New DOS host serial code
1876
1877This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1878no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1879a PC's serial port.
1880
1881*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1882
1883* New "complete" command
1884
1885This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1886were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1887
1888* Trailing space optional in prompt
1889
1890"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1891allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1892
1893* Breakpoint hit counts
1894
1895"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1896has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1897can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1898to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1899less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1900that breakpoint.
1901
1902* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1903
1904"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1905an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1906arrays actually contain only short strings.
1907
1908* Shared library breakpoints
1909
1910In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1911breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1912
1913* Hardware watchpoints
1914
1915There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1916targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1917
55241689 1918Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1919
1920* Annotations
1921
1922Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1923and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1924
1925* Improved Irix 5 support
1926
1927GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1928
1929* Improved HPPA support
1930
1931GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1932
1933* New native configurations
1934
1935Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1936HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1937Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1938RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1939
1940* New targets
1941
1942OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1943MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1944Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1945
1946* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1947
1948There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1949This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1950
1951* Fixes
1952
1953As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1954and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1955
1956*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1957
1958* Irix 5 is now supported
1959
1960* HPPA support
1961
1962GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1963to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1964GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1965of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1966can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1967
1968
1969*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1970
1971* User visible changes:
1972
1973* Remote Debugging
1974
1975The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1976target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1977debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1978integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1979debugging info for the mips target).
1980
1981* DEC Alpha native support
1982
1983GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1984debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1985work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1986Alpha-specific notes.
1987
1988* Preliminary thread implementation
1989
1990GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1991
1992* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1993
1994This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1995to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1996for details).
1997
1998* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1999
2000This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2001mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2002call methods, ...etc.
2003
2004*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2005
2006 * User visible changes:
2007
2008Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2009supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2010other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2011somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2012
2013Filename completion now works.
2014
2015When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2016arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2017addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2018
2019All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2020vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2021should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2022your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2023to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2024
2025 * DEC alpha support
2026
2027This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2028cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2029
2030
2031*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2032
2033 * Testsuite
2034
2035This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2036The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2037via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2038
2039 * C++ demangling
2040
2041'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2042emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2043Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2044disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2045use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2046
2047 * Simulators
2048
2049GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2050So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2051Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2052
2053 * New targets supported
2054
2055H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2056H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2057SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2058Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2059IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2060
2061Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2062version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2063GO32 memory extender.
2064
2065 * New remote protocols
2066
2067MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2068
2069 * New source languages supported
2070
2071This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2072used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2073into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2074
2075
2076*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2077
2078 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2079
2080GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2081version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2082University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2083compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2084format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2085(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2086
2087Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2088
2089 * Faster and better demangling
2090
2091We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2092demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2093character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2094only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2095This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2096increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2097symbol lookups.
2098
2099`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2100from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2101compiler does not actually implement.
2102
2103 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2104
2105In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2106inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2107recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2108very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2109The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2110circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2111fix.
2112
2113The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2114release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2115
2116 * Improved configure script
2117
2118The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2119you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2120host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2121done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2122
2123We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2124version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2125`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2126The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2127only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2128We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2129
2130 * Documentation improvements
2131
2132There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2133produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2134before submitting changes.
2135
2136The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2137M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2138`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2139you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2140a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2141
2142*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2143We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2144been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2145or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2146`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2147around this problem.
2148
2149 * New features
2150
2151GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2152the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2153`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2154the target program.
2155
2156The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2157how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2158
2159 * New native hosts supported
2160
2161HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2162386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2163
2164 * New targets supported
2165
2166AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2167
2168 * New file formats supported
2169
2170BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2171HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2172
2173 * Major bug fixes
2174
2175Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2176
2177We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2178printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2179
2180We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2181for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2182release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2183
2184You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2185will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2186
2187We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2188for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2189especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2190libraries.
2191
2192The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2193information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2194command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2195any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2196when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2197
2198 * Internal improvements
2199
2200GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2201debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2202
2203GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2204Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2205symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2206contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2207shared code that handles any of them.
2208
2209 * New command line options
2210
2211We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2212
2213 * Mmalloc licensing
2214
2215The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2216General Public License.
2217
2218*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2219
2220 * Host/native/target split
2221
2222GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2223hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2224target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2225local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2226ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2227
2228The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2229GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2230is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2231code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2232any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2233built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2234handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2235
2236GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2237It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2238plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2239
2240 * New hosts supported
2241
2242HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2243386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2244386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2245
2246 * New targets supported
2247
2248Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
224968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2250
2251 * New native hosts supported
2252
2253386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2254 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2255386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2256
2257 * New file formats supported
2258
2259BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2260supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2261format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2262
2263 * New commands
2264
2265`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2266`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2267These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2268
2269`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2270
2271You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2272scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2273prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2274executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2275
2276 * C++ improvements
2277
2278We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2279info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2280symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2281
2282Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2283
2284 * Major bug fixes
2285
2286The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2287fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2288by the compiler.
2289
2290We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2291support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2292
2293John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2294slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2295that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2296purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2297the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2298mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2299
2300Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2301about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2302completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2303we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2304
2305 * AMD 29k support
2306
2307A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2308specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2309calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2310usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2311in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2312
2313We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2314Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2315of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2316resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2317
2318 * Remote interfaces
2319
2320We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2321with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2322message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2323This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2324needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2325breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2326each instruction being stepped through.
2327
2328The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2329registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2330
2331There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2332find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2333Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2334processor with a serial port.
2335
2336 * Configuration
2337
2338Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2339`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2340supported, and what files each one uses.
2341
2342 * Library changes
2343
2344There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2345disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2346Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2347disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2348
2349The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2350Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2351can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2352grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2353
2354 * Documentation
2355
2356The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2357reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2358as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2359encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2360system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2361bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2362
2363And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2364
2365
2366*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2367
2368 * Better support for C++ function names
2369
2370GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2371names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2372(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2373single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2374Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2375
2376GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2377the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2378You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2379lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2380for the list of formats.
2381
2382 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2383
2384Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2385C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2386directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2387can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2388usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2389about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2390this problem.)
2391
2392 * New 'maintenance' command
2393
2394All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2395the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2396can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2397
2398 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2399 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2400 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2401 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2402 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2403 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2404
2405The following commands are new:
2406
2407 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2408 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2409 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2410
2411 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2412
2413We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2414(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2415be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2416read after argv processing.
2417
2418 * New hosts supported
2419
2420Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2421
55241689 2422GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2423
2424We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2425is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2426for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2427masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2428fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2429It costs extra.
2430
2431 * New targets supported
2432
2433Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2434
2435 * More smarts about finding #include files
2436
2437GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2438all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2439greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2440especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2441the one that contains your sources.
2442
2443We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2444breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2445try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2446
2447 * Interesting infernals change
2448
2449GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2450section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2451target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2452stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2453
2454 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2455
2456There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2457 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2458 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2459
2460See the ChangeLog for details.
2461
2462*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2463
2464 * New machines supported (host and target)
2465
2466IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2467
2468SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2469
2470 * New malloc package
2471
2472GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2473Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2474capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2475This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2476pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2477more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2478
2479 * info proc
2480
2481The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2482'help info proc' for details.
2483
2484 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2485
2486The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2487Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2488possible.
2489
2490 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2491
2492Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2493support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2494conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2495environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2496that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2497in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2498
2499 * Cross byte order fixes
2500
2501Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2502targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2503
2504 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2505
2506If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2507system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2508`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2509program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2510called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2511Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2512and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2513the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2514option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2515starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2516
2517You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2518the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2519information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2520slower, but makes future operations faster.
2521
2522The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2523build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2524A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2525use is:
2526
2527 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2528
2529The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2530It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2531shared across multiple host platforms.
2532
2533 * longjmp() handling
2534
2535GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2536siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2537all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2538platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2539
2540 * Solaris 2.0
2541
2542Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2543this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2544reading symbols.
2545
2546 * Bug fixes
2547
2548As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2549People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2550crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2551
2552*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2553
2554 * New machines supported (host and target)
2555
2556SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2557 (except core files)
2558BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2559Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2560
2561 * New machines supported (target)
2562
2563AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2564
2565 * C++ support
2566
2567GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2568The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2569per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2570
2571GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2572`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2573extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2574good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2575will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2576released.
2577
2578 * New features for SVR4
2579
2580GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2581shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2582only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2583
2584The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2585on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2586it prints the address mappings of the process.
2587
2588If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2589bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2590
2591 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2592
2593Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2594now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2595skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2596make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2597same code linked statically.
2598
2599 * New Getopt
2600
2601GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2602version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2603continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2604Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2605added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2606future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2607
2608 * Bugs fixed
2609
2610The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2611Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2612See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2613
2614
2615*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2616
2617 * New machines supported (host and target)
2618
2619Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2620NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2621Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2622
2623 * Almost SCO Unix support
2624
2625We had hoped to support:
2626SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2627(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2628that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2629about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2630
2631 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2632
2633GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2634debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2635is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2636send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2637reqired (if any).
2638
2639 * New Readline
2640
2641GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2642is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2643required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2644
2645 * Bugs fixed
2646
2647The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2648Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2649See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2650
2651 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2652
2653GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2654supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2655symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2656
2657Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2658mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2659debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2660mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2661version 2.
2662
2663Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2664really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2665line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2666variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2667situation somewhat.
2668
2669When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2670However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2671methods.
2672
2673We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2674DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2675encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2676
2677
2678*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2679
2680 * Improved configuration
2681
2682Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2683Porting BFD is simpler.
2684
2685 * Stepping improved
2686
2687The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2688of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2689in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2690function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2691
2692 * Bug fixing
2693
2694Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2695
2696 * New host supported (not target)
2697
2698Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2699
2700
2701*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2702
2703 * Multiple source language support
2704
2705GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2706It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2707and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2708language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2709You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2710`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2711
2712 * GDB and Modula-2
2713
2714GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2715currently under development at the State University of New York at
2716Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2717continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2718
2719Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2720debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2721symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2722
2723There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2724in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2725
2726 * set write on/off
2727
2728GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2729a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2730the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2731by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2732effect immediately.
2733
2734 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2735
2736When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2737shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2738The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2739examining core files.
2740
2741 * set listsize
2742
2743You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2744The default is 10.
2745
2746 * New machines supported (host and target)
2747
2748SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2749Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2750Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2751
2752 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2753
2754IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2755
2756 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2757
2758AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2759AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2760Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2761
2762 * New remote interfaces
2763
2764AMD 29000 Adapt
2765AMD 29000 Minimon
2766
2767
2768*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2769
2770 * New Facilities
2771
2772Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2773
2774Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2775target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2776is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2777remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2778remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2779also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2780using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2781stub on the target system.
2782
2783New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2784
2785GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2786library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2787object file types such as a.out and coff.
2788
2789There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2790refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2791
2792
2793 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2794
2795All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2796by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2797
2798For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2799``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2800Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2801
2802What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2803print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2804will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2805all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2806
2807confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2808 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2809 it is already running. Default is ON.
2810
2811editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2812 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2813 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2814 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2815 Default is ON.
2816
2817history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2818 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2819 or the value of the environment variable
2820 GDBHISTFILE.
2821
2822history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2823 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2824 HISTSIZE.
2825
2826history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2827 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2828 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2829
2830history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2831 history expansion will be performed on
2832 command line input. The default is OFF.
2833
2834radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2835 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2836 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2837
2838height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2839 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2840 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2841 variable TERM.
2842
2843width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2844 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2845 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2846 variable TERM.
2847
2848Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2849``set width'' instead.
2850
2851print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2852 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2853 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2854 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2855
2856print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2857 is OFF.
2858
2859print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2860 "raw" form if off.
2861
2862print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2863 like instructions.
2864
2865print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2866
2867
2868 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2869
2870The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2871new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2872are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2873window.
2874
2875
2876 * Support for Shared Libraries
2877
2878GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2879Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2880before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2881happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2882At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2883from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2884shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2885It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2886
2887sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2888 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2889 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2890
2891info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2892
2893
2894 * Watchpoints
2895
2896A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2897expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2898tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2899quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2900problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2901more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2902
2903watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2904
2905info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2906
2907delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2908disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2909enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2910
2911
2912 * C++ multiple inheritance
2913
2914When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2915for C++ programs.
2916
2917 * C++ exception handling
2918
2919Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2920ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2921the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2922handler's context).
2923
2924catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2925 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2926 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2927
2928info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2929 current stack frame.
2930
2931
2932 * Minor command changes
2933
2934The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2935command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2936is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2937
2938The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2939at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2940frames without printing.
2941
2942 * New directory command
2943
2944'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2945The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2946about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2947with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2948find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2949
2950 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2951
2952For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2953for more details.
2954
2955GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2956two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2957Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2958where the program that you are debugging will run.
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