* tracepoint.c (trace_save): Call the writer's start method.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
bd712aed 6* New commands:
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7catch rethrow
8 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
9
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10show configuration
11 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
12
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13maint set|show per-command
14maint set|show per-command space
15maint set|show per-command time
16maint set|show per-command symtab
17 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
18
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19* New options
20
21set remote trace-status-packet
22show remote trace-status-packet
23 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
24
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25* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
26 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
27 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
28 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
29 "set height 0".
30
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31* New command-line options
32--configuration
33 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
34
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35* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
36 buffer in Common Trace Format.
37
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38* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
39 GDB command gcore.
40
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41* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
42
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43* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
44 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
45
46* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
47 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
48
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49* MI changes
50
51 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
52 Trace Format now.
53
2d450646 54*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 55
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56* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
57 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
58 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
59 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
60
61set|show record full insn-number-max
62set|show record full stop-at-limit
63set|show record full memory-query
64
65* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
66 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
67 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
68 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
69 This new recording method can be enabled using:
70
71record btrace
72
73 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
74 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
75
76* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
77 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
78 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
79
80record instruction-history prints the execution history at
81 instruction granularity
82
83record function-call-history prints the execution history at
84 function granularity
85
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86* New native configurations
87
51d66578 88ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 89FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 90x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 91Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 92
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93* New targets
94
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95ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
96ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 97Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 98x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 99Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 100
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101* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
102 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
103 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
104 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
105 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
106 --data-directory command-line option.
107
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108* New command line options:
109
110-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
111 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
112
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113* Removed command line options
114
115-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
116 Emacs.
117
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118* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
119 type formatting.
120
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121* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
122
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123* Python scripting
124
125 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
126
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127 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
128
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129 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
130
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131 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
132
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133 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
134 of architecture in the Python API.
135
136 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
137 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
138
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139* New Python-based convenience functions:
140
141 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
142 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
143 ** $_strlen(str)
144 ** $_regex(str, regex)
145
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146* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
147 given an argument.
148
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149* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
150 default for GCC since November 2000.
151
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152* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
153
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154* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
155 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
156
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157* New configure options
158
159--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
160 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
161 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
162 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
163 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
164 options allow the user to override that default.
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165--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
166 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
167 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 168
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169* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
170
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171catch signal
172 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
173 conditions to be attached.
174
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175maint info bfds
176 List the BFDs known to GDB.
177
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178python-interactive [command]
179pi [command]
180 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
181 and print the result of expressions.
182
183py [command]
184 "py" is a new alias for "python".
185
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186enable type-printer [name]...
187disable type-printer [name]...
188 Enable or disable type printers.
189
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190* Removed commands
191
192 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
193 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
194 instead.
195
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196* New options
197
198set print type methods (on|off)
199show print type methods
200 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
201 The default is to show them.
202
203set print type typedefs (on|off)
204show print type typedefs
205 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
206 The default is to show them.
207
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208set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
209show filename-display
210 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
211 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
212
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213set trace-buffer-size
214show trace-buffer-size
215 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
216
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217set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
218show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
219 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
220
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221set debug aarch64
222show debug aarch64
223 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
224 The default is off.
225
226set debug coff-pe-read
227show debug coff-pe-read
228 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
229 exported symbols.
230
231set debug mach-o
232show debug mach-o
233 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
234 processing.
235
236set debug notification
237show debug notification
238 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
239
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240* MI changes
241
242 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
243 "=cmd-param-changed".
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244 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
245 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
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246 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
247 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
248 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
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249 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
250 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
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251 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
252 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 253 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 254 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
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255 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
256 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
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257 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
258 library load/unload events.
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259 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
260 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
261 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
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262 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
263 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
264 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
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265 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
266 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 267
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268* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
269 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
270 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
271 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
272
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273* New remote packets
274
275QTBuffer:size
276 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
277 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
278
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279Qbtrace:bts
280 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
281 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
282 qSupported query.
283
284Qbtrace:off
285 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
286 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
287
288qXfer:btrace:read
289 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
290 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
291
80c8d323 292*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 293
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294* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
295 for more x32 ABI info.
296
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297* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
298
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299* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
300
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301* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
302 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
303 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
304 "info os files" lists file descriptors
305 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
306 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
307 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
308 "info os msg" lists message queues
309 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
310
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311* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
312 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
313 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
314 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
315 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
316 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
317
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318* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
319 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
320 record/replay support.
321
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322* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
323
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324* Python scripting
325
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326 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
327 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
328
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329 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
330
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331 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
332 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
333
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334 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
335
336 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
337 the source at which the symbol was defined.
338
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339 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
340 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
341 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
342 symbol's value.
343
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344 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
345 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
346
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347 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
348 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
349 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
350
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351 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
352 object associated with a PC value.
353
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354 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
355 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
356
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357* Go language support.
358 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
359 language.
360
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361* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
362 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
363
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364* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
365 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
366
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367* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
368 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
369 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
370 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
371 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
372 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
373
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374* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
375 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
376 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
377 build/libcpp/expr.c.
378
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379* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
380 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
381
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382* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
383 since December 2007.
384
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385* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
386 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
387 command does. For instance:
388
389 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
390
391 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
392 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
393 created, using the "condition" command.
394
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395* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
396 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
397
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398* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
399
400* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
401 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
402 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
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403 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
404 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
405 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
406 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
407 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 408
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409 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
410 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
411 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
412 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
413 the .gdb_index section.
414
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415* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
416
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417* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
418 target.
419
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420* MI changes
421
422 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
423
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424 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
425
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426* New commands
427
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428 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
429 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
430 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
431
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432 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
433 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
434
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435 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
436 several hits.
437
57651221 438 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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439 C++ and Java objects.
440
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441 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
442 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
443 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
444 configured with '--with-python'.
445
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446 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
447 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
448 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
449 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
450 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
451 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
452 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
453
454 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
455 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
456 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
457 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
458
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459 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
460 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
461 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
462 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
463
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464 ** "set print symbol"
465 "show print symbol"
466 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
467 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
468 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
469
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470* Deprecated commands
471
472 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
473 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
474
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475* New targets
476
477Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 478HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 479
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480* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
481 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
482 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
483 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
484 evaluates to true.
485
486* New options
487
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488set mips compression
489show mips compression
490 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
491 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
492 mips16
493 micromips
494 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
495
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496set breakpoint condition-evaluation
497show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 498 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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499 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
500 available mode.
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501 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
502 target.
503
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504set auto-load off
505 Disable auto-loading globally.
506
507show auto-load
508 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
509
510set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
511show auto-load gdb-scripts
512 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
513
514set auto-load python-scripts on|off
515show auto-load python-scripts
516 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
517
518set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
519show auto-load local-gdbinit
520 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
521
522set auto-load libthread-db on|off
523show auto-load libthread-db
524 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
525
7349ff92 526set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 527show auto-load scripts-directory
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528 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
529 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
530 of the directories listed by this option.
531 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
532
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533set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
534show auto-load safe-path
535 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
536 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
537
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538set debug auto-load on|off
539show debug auto-load
540 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
541
d3ce09f5 542set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 543show dprintf-style
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544 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
545 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
546 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
547 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
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548
549set dprintf-function <expr>
550show dprintf-function
551set dprintf-channel <expr>
552show dprintf-channel
553 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
554 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
555
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556set disconnected-dprintf on|off
557show disconnected-dprintf
558 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
559 after GDB disconnects.
560
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561* New configure options
562
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563--with-auto-load-dir
564 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
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565 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
566 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
567 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
568 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 569
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570--with-auto-load-safe-path
571 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 572 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
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573
574--without-auto-load-safe-path
575 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
576 security feature.
577
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578* New remote packets
579
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580z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
581
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582 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
583 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
584 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
585 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
586
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587QProgramSignals:
588
589 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
590 program without GDB involvement.
591
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592* New command line options
593
594--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
595 before loading inferior.
596--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
597 execute it before loading inferior.
598
8837a20f
JB
599*** Changes in GDB 7.4
600
f8eba3c6
TT
601* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
602 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
603 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
604 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
605 inferior changes.
606
1bfeeb0f
JL
607* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
608 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
609
480a3f21
PW
610* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
611 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
612 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
613 target hardware watchpoint.
614
615 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
616 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
617 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
618 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
619
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620* Python scripting
621
32d1c362 622 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 623 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
624 existing one.
625
3a7bf607 626 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
627 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
628 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
629 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
630 now "message", which just prints the error message without
631 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 632
baacfb07 633 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 634 Python API.
713389e0 635
fa3a4f15
PM
636 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
637 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 638 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
639 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
640 corresponding value.
641
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PM
642 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
643 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
644 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
645 on GDB start-up.
646
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PM
647 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
648 static_block will return the global and static blocks
649 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
650 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
651
457e09f0
DE
652 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
653
6839b47f
KP
654 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
655 "gdb.breakpoints".
656
cc72b2a2
KP
657 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
658 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
659 available in the CLI.
660
84ad80e6
PK
661 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
662 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
663 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
664 "some_type.items()".
665
20c168b5
KP
666 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
667 new object file.
668
03c3051a
PK
669 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
670 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
671 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
672 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
673 any anonymous fields.
674
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TT
675* MI changes
676
677 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
678 "solib-event".
679
680 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
681 "=breakpoint-modified".
682
683 ** New command -ada-task-info.
684
98a5dd13
DE
685* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
686 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
687 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
688 lives.
689
690 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
691 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
692 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
693 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
694 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
695
696 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
697 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
698
478aac75
DE
699* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
700 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
701 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
702 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
703 use this option to specify where to find it.
704
9c06b0b4
TJB
705* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
706 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
707 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
708 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
709 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
710 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
711 section in the user manual for more details.
712
03f2bd59
JK
713* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
714 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
715 become available after that.
716
71eba9c2 717* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 718
2bda9cc5
JK
719* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
720 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
721 gcc version 4.7.
722
ed59ded5
DE
723* New commands
724
725!SHELL COMMAND
726 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
727 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
728
9c06b0b4
TJB
729* Changed commands
730
731watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
732 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
733 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
734
dbaefcf7
DE
735info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
736 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
737 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
738
71eba9c2 739info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
740 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
741 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
742 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
743 name starts with a hyphen.
744
3065dfb6
SS
745collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
746 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
747 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
748 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
749 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
750 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
751 number of bytes that will be collected.
752
f196051f
SS
753tstart [NOTES]
754 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
755 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
756 setting the variable trace-notes.
757
758tstop [NOTES]
759 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
760 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
761 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
762 trace-stop-notes.
763
d248b706
KY
764* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
765 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
766 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
767 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
768 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
769 is running.
770
405f8e94
SS
771* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
772 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
773 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
774
2bda9cc5
JK
775* New options
776
45cfd468
DE
777set debug dwarf2-read
778show debug dwarf2-read
779 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
780 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
781
782set debug symtab-create
783show debug symtab-create
784 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
785 creation. The default is off.
786
baacfb07
PM
787set extended-prompt
788show extended-prompt
789 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
790 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
791 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
792 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
793 prompt is displayed.
794
2bda9cc5
JK
795set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
796show print entry-values
797 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
798 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
799 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
800
801set debug entry-values
802show debug entry-values
803 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
804 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
805
c011a4f4
DE
806set basenames-may-differ
807show basenames-may-differ
808 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
809 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
810 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
811 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
812 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
813 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
814 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
815 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
816
f196051f
SS
817set trace-user
818show trace-user
819set trace-notes
820show trace-notes
821 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
822 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
823 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
824 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
825
826set trace-stop-notes
827show trace-stop-notes
828 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
829 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
830 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
831 started by someone else.
832
d248b706
KY
833* New remote packets
834
835QTEnable
836
837 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
838
839QTDisable
840
841 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
842
f196051f
SS
843QTNotes
844
845 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
846
847qTP
848
849 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
850
405f8e94
SS
851qTMinFTPILen
852
853 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
854 be placed.
855
1a532630
PP
856* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
857 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
858
11315641
YQ
859* New targets
860
861Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
862
87326c78
DD
863* New Simulators
864
865Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
866
e8d56f18
JB
867*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
868
869* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
870
d6e00af6 871*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 872
60f98dde
MS
873* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
874 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
875 matches the given regular expression.
876
eee5b35e
DD
877* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
878
b716877b
AB
879* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
880 dumping the instruction opcodes.
881
aae1c79a
DE
882* New command line options
883
884-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
885 This is mostly for testing purposes.
886
a86caf66
DE
887* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
888 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
889
99e7ae30
DE
890* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
891 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
892 source path list instead of augmenting it.
893
4694da01
TT
894* GDB now understands thread names.
895
896 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
897 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
898
899 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
900 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
901
f4b8a18d
KW
902* OpenCL C
903 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
904 has been integrated into GDB.
905
585d1eb8
PM
906* Python scripting
907
da5d4055
PM
908 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
909 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
910 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
911
9a6f1302
PM
912 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
913 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
914 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
915 and allows for more dynamic content.
916
29703da4
PM
917 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
918 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
919 have an is_valid method.
920
350c6c65
PM
921 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
922 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
923 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
924
6e6fbe60
DE
925 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
926
585d1eb8
PM
927 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
928 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
929 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
930 that function like so:
931
932 result = some_value (10,20)
933
0e3509db
DE
934 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
935 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
936 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
937
7b51bc51
DE
938 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
939 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
940 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
941 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
942 New function: register_pretty_printer.
943
944 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
945 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
946
99e7ae30
DE
947 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
948
d8e22779
TT
949 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
950 selected thread.
951
4694da01
TT
952 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
953 holds the thread's name.
954
505500db
SW
955 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
956 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 957 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
958 The following events are currently supported:
959 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
960 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
961 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
962
def98928
TT
963* C++ Improvements:
964
965 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
966 instantiation. For example, if you have:
967
968 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
969
970 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
971 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
972 was added to GCC 4.5.
973
66cb8159
TT
974 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
975 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
976 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
977 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
978 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
979 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
980
4aac0db7
UW
981* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
982 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
983 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
984 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
985 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
986
283e6a52
TT
987* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
988 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
989 execution to a label.
990
991* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
992 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
993 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
994 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
995
b56df873 996* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 997 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
998 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
999 of scope.
1000
ae53ffa4
PA
1001* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1002
1003 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1004 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1005 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1006 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1007 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1008 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1009
1010 (gdb) info threads
1011 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1012
1013 While now you see this:
1014
1015 (gdb) info threads
1016 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1017
1018 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1019 dumps.
1020
1021 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1022 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1023 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1024 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1025
f1310107
TJB
1026* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1027 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1028 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1029 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1030 section in the user manual for more details.
1031
248c9dbc
JB
1032* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1033
1aee7009
JB
1034 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1035 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1036
eb826dc6
MF
1037 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1038
44603653
JB
1039* New native configurations
1040
1041ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1042
91021223
MF
1043* New targets:
1044
1045Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1046
6e1bb179
JB
1047* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1048 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1049 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1050 in the GDB user manual.
1051
50c97f38
TT
1052* Guile support was removed.
1053
448a92bf
MF
1054* New features in the GNU simulator
1055
1056 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1057
66ee2731
MF
1058 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1059
76b8507d 1060*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1061
ba25b921
PA
1062* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1063
1064 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1065 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1066 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1067 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1068 was always disabled for such configurations.
1069
4656f5c6
SW
1070* C++ Improvements:
1071
1072 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1073
1074 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1075 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1076 For example:
1077 namespace A
1078 {
1079 class B { };
1080 void foo (B) { }
1081 }
1082 ...
1083 A::B b
1084 foo(b)
1085 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1086 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1087 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1088
1089 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1090
1091 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1092 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1093 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1094 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1095 entry.
1096 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1097 mentioned flavors of operators.
1098
254e6b9e
DE
1099 ** static const class members
1100
1101 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1102 class definition has been fixed.
1103
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PM
1104* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1105
1106 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1107 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1108 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1109 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1110 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1111 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1112
0fb4aa4b
PA
1113* Static tracepoints
1114
1115 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1116 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1117 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1118 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1119 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1120 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1121 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1122 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1123 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1124 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1125 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1126 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1127 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1128 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1129 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1130 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1131 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1132 the "New remote packets" section below.
1133
ca11e899
SS
1134* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1135
1136 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1137 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1138 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1139 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1140
1141* Observer mode
1142
1143 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1144 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1145 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1146 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1147 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1148 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1149 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1150
1151* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1152 current thread.
1153
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PM
1154* New remote packets
1155
1156qGetTIBAddr
1157
1158 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1159
dde08ee1
PA
1160qRelocInsn
1161
1162 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1163 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1164 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1165 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1166 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1167 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1168
0fb4aa4b
PA
1169qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1170
1171 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1172
1173qTSTMat
1174
1175 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1176 program.
1177
1178qXfer:statictrace:read
1179
1180 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1181 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1182 to gdb's qSupported query.
1183
ca11e899
SS
1184QAllow
1185
1186 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1187
1188QTDPsrc
1189
1190 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1191 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1192
3f7b2faa
DE
1193* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1194 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1195 a directory.
1196
d337e9f0
PA
1197* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1198
0fb4aa4b
PA
1199 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1200 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1201 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1202 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1203
1204 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1205 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1206 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1207 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1208 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1209 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1210 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1211
1212 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1213 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1214
c24d0242
PM
1215 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1216
c8d5aac9
L
1217* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1218 it understands register description.
1219
7c953934
TT
1220* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1221
8685c86f
L
1222* X86 general purpose registers
1223
1224 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1225 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1226 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1227 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1228 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1229
95a42b64 1230* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1231 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1232 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1233 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1234 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1235 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1236
8bd10a10
CM
1237* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1238 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1239 in the specified file.
1240
ab38a727
PA
1241* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1242 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1243 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1244 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1245 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1246 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1247 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1248 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1249 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1250 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1251
6149aea9
PA
1252* New commands
1253
f1421989
HZ
1254eval template, expressions...
1255 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1256 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1257
ab38a727
PA
1258set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1259show target-file-system-kind
1260 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1261 names.
1262
6149aea9
PA
1263save breakpoints <filename>
1264 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1265 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1266 definitions, use the `source' command.
1267
1268`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1269is now deprecated.
1270
0fb4aa4b
PA
1271info static-tracepoint-markers
1272 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1273
1274strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1275 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1276 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1277
ca11e899
SS
1278set observer on|off
1279show observer
1280 Enable and disable observer mode.
1281
1282set may-write-registers on|off
1283set may-write-memory on|off
1284set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1285set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1286set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1287set may-interrupt on|off
1288 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1289 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1290 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1291 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1292 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1293 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1294 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1295
1296set record memory-query on|off
1297show record memory-query
1298 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1299 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1300
53a71c06
CR
1301* Changed commands
1302
1303disassemble
1304 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1305
f3e9a817
PM
1306* Python scripting
1307
9279c692
JB
1308** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1309 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1310 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1311 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1312 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1313
adc36818 1314** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1315 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1316 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1317 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1318
fa33c3cd 1319** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1320 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1321
1322** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1323
1324** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1325
967cf477
DE
1326** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1327
8a1ea21f
DE
1328** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1329 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1330 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1331
a7bdde9e
VP
1332* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1333there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1334tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1335regular breakpoints.
1336
05071a4d
PA
1337* New targets
1338
1339ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1340
6aecb9c2
JB
1341* D language support.
1342 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1343 language.
1344
431e49aa
TJB
1345* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1346 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1347 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1348 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1349 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1350
1351* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1352 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1353 conditions of the form:
1354
1355 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1356
1357 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1358 interface mentioned above.
1359
bfbf3774 1360*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1361
4eef138c
TT
1362* C++ Improvements
1363
1364 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1365
1366 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1367 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1368 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1369 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1370 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1371
4eef138c
TT
1372 ** Bug Fixes
1373
1374 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1375 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1376 qualified name.
1377
1378 ** Cast Operators
1379
1380 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1381 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1382
2d1c1221
ME
1383* New targets
1384
1385Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1386Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1387
1388* New Simulators
1389
1390Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1391Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1392
6c95b8df
PA
1393* Multi-program debugging.
1394
1395 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1396 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1397 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1398 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1399 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1400 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1401 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1402 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1403
d5551862
SS
1404* New tracing features
1405
1406 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1407
1408 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1409
1410 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1411 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1412 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1413 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1414 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1415 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1416 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1417 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1418 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1419 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1420
d5551862 1421 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1422
1423 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1424 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1425 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1426 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1427 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1428 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1429 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1430 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1431 the regular trace command.
1432
d5551862
SS
1433 ** Disconnected tracing
1434
1435 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1436 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1437 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1438 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1439 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1440
00bf0b85
SS
1441 ** Trace files
1442
1443 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1444 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1445 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1446 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1447 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1448 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1449 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1450
1451 ** Circular trace buffer
1452
1453 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1454 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1455 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1456 not be available for all target agents.
1457
21a0512e
PP
1458* Changed commands
1459
1460disassemble
1461 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1462 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1463
0fe7935b
DJ
1464info variables
1465 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1466 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1467
fb2e7cb4
JB
1468source
1469 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1470 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1471 support.
1472
1473 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1474 "set script-extension" (see below).
1475
6c95b8df
PA
1476* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1477
399cd161
MS
1478record save [<FILENAME>]
1479 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1480 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1481
1482record restore <FILENAME>
1483 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1484 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1485
6c95b8df
PA
1486add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1487 Add a new inferior.
1488
1489clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1490 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1491 inferior has loaded.
1492
1493remove-inferior ID
1494 Remove an inferior.
1495
1496maint info program-spaces
1497 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1498
9a7071a8
JB
1499set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1500show remote interrupt-sequence
1501 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1502 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1503 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1504 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1505 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1506
1507set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1508show remote interrupt-on-connect
1509 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1510 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1511 Linux kernel.
1512
1513set remotebreak [on | off]
1514show remotebreak
1515Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1516
f61e138d
SS
1517tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1518 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1519
1520info tvariables
1521 List trace state variables and their values.
1522
1523delete tvariable $NAME ...
1524 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1525
6da95a67
SS
1526teval EXPR, ...
1527 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1528 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1529
7a697b8d
SS
1530ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1531 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1532
b0f02ee9
JK
1533* New expression syntax
1534
1535 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1536 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1537
6c95b8df
PA
1538* New options
1539
1540set follow-exec-mode new|same
1541show follow-exec-mode
1542 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1543 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1544 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1545
236f1d4d
SS
1546set default-collect EXPR, ...
1547show default-collect
1548 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1549 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1550 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1551
d5551862
SS
1552set disconnected-tracing
1553show disconnected-tracing
1554 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1555 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1556 upon disconnection.
1557
4daf5ac0
SS
1558set circular-trace-buffer
1559show circular-trace-buffer
1560 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1561 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1562 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1563 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1564
fb2e7cb4
JB
1565set script-extension off|soft|strict
1566show script-extension
1567 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1568 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1569 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1570 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1571 evaluation failed.
1572 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1573
2b71fc8e
JB
1574set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1575show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1576 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1577 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1578 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1579 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1580 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1581 is on.
1582
de2e5182
TT
1583* Python API Improvements
1584
1585 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1586 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1587 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1588
1589 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1590 `is_base_class' attribute.
1591
1592 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1593
1594 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1595 evaluate an expression.
1596
f61e138d
SS
1597* New remote packets
1598
1599QTDV
1600 Define a trace state variable.
1601
1602qTV
1603 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1604
d5551862
SS
1605QTDisconnected
1606 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1607
4daf5ac0
SS
1608QTBuffer:circular
1609 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1610
d5551862
SS
1611qTfP, qTsP
1612 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1613
2d483d34
MS
1614* Bug fixes
1615
1616Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1617
6e0e5977
JB
1618Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1619much more reliable. In particular:
1620 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1621 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1622 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1623 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1624 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1625 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1626 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1627 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1628 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1629 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1630 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1631 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1632 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1633 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1634 non-threaded programs.
1635
93c26624
JK
1636PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1637This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1638libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1639executable program.
1640
abc7453d 1641*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1642
4efc6507
DE
1643* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1644dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1645them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1646for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1647"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1648
782b2b07
SS
1649* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1650breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1651or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1652the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1653for tracepoint actions.
1654
53a71c06
CR
1655* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1656raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1657modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1658
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1659* Process record and replay
1660
1661 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1662 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1663 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1664 execute commands.
1665
64644d9b
MS
1666* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1667step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1668set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1669reverse execution.
1670
b9412953
DD
1671* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1672feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
16732.6.28 or later.
1674
6c7a06a3
TT
1675* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1676target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1677char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1678literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1679U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1680`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1681system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1682the installation instructions for more information.
1683
f1838a98
UW
1684* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1685remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1686with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1687the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1688
55333a84
DE
1689* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1690and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1691
7f6a6314
PM
1692* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1693now complete on file names.
1694
65d12d83
TT
1695* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1696completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1697For instance, consider:
1698
1699 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1700 # struct example variable;
1701 (gdb) p variable.
1702
1703If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1704completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1705
edb3359d
DJ
1706* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1707the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1708
2fae03e8
TT
1709* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1710operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1711macros.
1712
47a3467a 1713* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1714the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1715implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1716
1717* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1718registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1719can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1720and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1721
08388c79
DE
1722* New remote packets
1723
1724qSearch:memory:
1725 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1726
a6f3e723
SL
1727QStartNoAckMode
1728 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1729 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1730 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1731
d7713ae0
EZ
1732vKill
1733 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1734 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1735
07e059b5
VP
1736qXfer:osdata:read
1737 Obtains additional operating system information
1738
47a3467a
PA
1739qXfer:siginfo:read
1740qXfer:siginfo:write
1741 Read or write additional signal information.
1742
060871df
PA
1743* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1744
1745 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1746 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1747 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1748
c055b101 1749* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1750DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1751
1752* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1753and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1754`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1755
31fffb02
CS
1756* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1757with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1758
88d8a8e0
JB
1759* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1760
7f99b190
JB
1761* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1762
ccd213ac
DJ
1763* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1764which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1765
1fddbabb 1766* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1767list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1768
a0ef4274
DJ
1769* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1770conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1771have also been fixed.
1772
bfb8797a 1773* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1774From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1775are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1776
71c25dea
TT
1777* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1778example, given:
1779
1780 template<typename T> class C { };
1781 C<char const *> c;
1782
1783GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1784
1785 ptype C<char const *>
1786 ptype C<char const*>
1787 ptype C<const char *>
1788 ptype C<const char*>
1789
ccd213ac
DJ
1790* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1791
1792 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1793 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1794
7ae0e2a2
UW
1795 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1796 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1797 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1798
a6f3e723
SL
1799 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1800 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1801
da8bd9a3
DJ
1802 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1803 gdbserver.
1804
d70e31dd
DE
1805 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1806 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1807
1808 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1809 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1810 as appropriate.
1811
d57a3c85
TJB
1812* Python scripting
1813
1814 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1815 available is determined at configure time.
1816
d8906c6f
TJB
1817 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1818
aadc346a
JB
1819* Ada tasking support
1820
1821 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1822 been introduced:
1823
1824 info tasks
1825 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1826 info task N
1827 Print detailed information about task number N.
1828 task
1829 Print the task number of the current task.
1830 task N
1831 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1832
adb483fe
DJ
1833* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1834add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1835
2277426b
PA
1836* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1837
1838 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1839 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1840 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1841 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1842 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1843 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1844 below.
1845
08d16641
PA
1846* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1847"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1848information.
1849
e35359c5
UW
1850* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1851to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1852architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1853See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1854more information.
1855
85e747d2
UW
1856* Multi-architecture debugging.
1857
1858 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1859 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1860 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1861 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1862 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1863
1864* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1865use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1866Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1867powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1868--enable-targets configure option.
1869
11ade57a
PA
1870* Non-stop mode debugging.
1871
1872 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1873 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1874 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1875 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1876 section in the user manual for more information.
1877
1878 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1879 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1880 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1881 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1882 extensions on linux targets.
1883
d7713ae0 1884* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1885
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1886catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1887 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1888 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1889 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1890 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1891 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1892 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1893 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1894 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1895
08388c79
DE
1896find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1897 val1 [, val2, ...]
1898 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1899
d57a3c85
TJB
1900maint set python print-stack
1901maint show python print-stack
1902 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1903
1904python [CODE]
1905 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1906
d7713ae0
EZ
1907macro define
1908macro list
1909macro undef
1910 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1911 interactively.
1912
1913info os processes
1914 Show operating system information about processes.
1915
2277426b
PA
1916info inferiors
1917 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1918
1919inferior NUM
1920 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1921
1922detach inferior NUM
1923 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1924
1925kill inferior NUM
1926 Kill inferior number NUM.
1927
d7713ae0
EZ
1928* New options
1929
3285f3fe
UW
1930set spu stop-on-load
1931show spu stop-on-load
1932 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1933
ff1a52c6
UW
1934set spu auto-flush-cache
1935show spu auto-flush-cache
1936 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1937 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1938
d7713ae0
EZ
1939set sh calling-convention
1940show sh calling-convention
1941 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1942
e0a3ce09 1943set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1944show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1945 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1946
1947set disassemble-next-line
1948show disassemble-next-line
1949 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1950 the debuggee stops.
1951
1952set remote noack-packet
1953show remote noack-packet
1954 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1955 under "New remote packets."
1956
1957set remote query-attached-packet
1958show remote query-attached-packet
1959 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1960
1961set remote read-siginfo-object
1962show remote read-siginfo-object
1963 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1964 packet.
1965
1966set remote write-siginfo-object
1967show remote write-siginfo-object
1968 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1969 packet.
1970
40ab02ce
MS
1971set remote reverse-continue
1972show remote reverse-continue
1973 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1974
1975set remote reverse-step
1976show remote reverse-step
1977 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1978
d7713ae0
EZ
1979set displaced-stepping
1980show displaced-stepping
1981 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1982 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1983 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1984
1985set debug displaced
1986show debug displaced
1987 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1988
1989maint set internal-error
1990maint show internal-error
1991 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1992
1993maint set internal-warning
1994maint show internal-warning
1995 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1996
ccd213ac
DJ
1997set exec-wrapper
1998show exec-wrapper
1999unset exec-wrapper
2000 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2001
aad4b048
JB
2002set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2003show multiple-symbols
2004 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2005 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2006 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2007
74960c60
VP
2008set breakpoint always-inserted
2009show breakpoint always-inserted
2010 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2011 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2012 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2013
0428b8f5
DJ
2014set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2015show arm fallback-mode
2016set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2017show arm force-mode
2018 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2019 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2020 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2021 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2022
10568435
JK
2023set disable-randomization
2024show disable-randomization
2025 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2026 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2027 multiple debugging sessions.
2028
d7713ae0
EZ
2029set non-stop
2030show non-stop
2031 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2032 a breakpoint.
2033
b3eb342c 2034set target-async
d7713ae0 2035show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2036 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2037 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2038 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2039 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2040
6c7a06a3
TT
2041set target-wide-charset
2042show target-wide-charset
2043 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2044 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2045
84603566
SL
2046set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2047show tcp auto-retry
2048set tcp connect-timeout
2049show tcp connect-timeout
2050 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2051 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2052 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2053
17a37d48
PP
2054set libthread-db-search-path
2055show libthread-db-search-path
2056 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2057 libthread_db.
2058
d4db2f36
PA
2059set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2060show schedule-multiple
2061 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2062 the current process.
2063
4e5d721f
DE
2064set stack-cache
2065show stack-cache
2066 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2067 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2068 affecting correctness.
2069
910c5da8
JB
2070set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2071show interactive-mode
2072 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2073 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2074 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2075 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2076 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2077
2277426b
PA
2078* Removed commands
2079
2080info forks
2081 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2082 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2083 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2084 command.
2085
2086fork NUM
2087 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2088 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2089 alias for the `fork' command.
2090
2091process PID
2092 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2093 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2094 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2095
2096delete fork NUM
2097 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2098 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2099 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2100 fork' command.
2101
2102detach fork NUM
2103 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2104 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2105 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2106 fork' command.
2107
a80b95ba
TG
2108* New native configurations
2109
2110x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2111
b8bfd3ed
JB
2112x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2113
75a2d5e7
TT
2114* New targets
2115
c28c63d8 2116Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2117x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2118x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2119S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2120
6de3146c
PA
2121* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2122 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2123
d5cbbe6e
JB
2124* Removed commands
2125
2126catch load
2127catch unload
2128 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2129
75feb17d 2130*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2131
af5ca30d
NH
2132* New native configurations
2133
2134NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2135Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2136
2137* New targets
2138
2139NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2140Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2141
7a404eba
PA
2142* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2143
2144 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2145 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2146 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2147 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2148
430ebac9
PA
2149* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2150(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2151
fe6fbf8b 2152* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2153is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2154
2155* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2156including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2157and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2158
10665d76
JB
2159* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2160accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2161more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2162
7cc46491
DJ
2163* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2164
d71340b8
DJ
2165* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2166registers on PowerPC targets.
2167
523c4513
DJ
2168* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2169targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2170
a6b151f1
DJ
2171* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2172commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2173
2d717e4f
DJ
2174* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2175extended-remote mode.
2176
24a836bd 2177* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2178The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2179error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2180The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2181
d0c678e6
UW
2182* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2183building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2184target architectures.
2185
d64a946d
TJB
2186* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2187Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2188now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2189stored in two consecutive float registers.
2190
ee163bf5
VP
2191* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2192breakpoints now.
2193
b93b6ca7 2194* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2195Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2196include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2197 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2198 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2199 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2200 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2201 of an assignment
2202 - Improved command completion in Ada
2203 - Several bug fixes
2204
d001be7a
DJ
2205* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2206process.
2207
a6b151f1
DJ
2208* New commands
2209
6d53d0af
JB
2210set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2211show print frame-arguments
2212 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2213 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2214
a6b151f1
DJ
2215remote put
2216remote get
2217remote delete
2218 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2219
2220* New MI commands
2221
2222-target-file-put
2223-target-file-get
2224-target-file-delete
2225 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2226
2227* New remote packets
2228
2229vFile:open:
2230vFile:close:
2231vFile:pread:
2232vFile:pwrite:
2233vFile:unlink:
2234 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2235
2d717e4f
DJ
2236vAttach
2237 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2238 mode.
2239
2240vRun
2241 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2242
8d5f9c6f 2243*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2244
19d378fc
MS
2245* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2246bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2247Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2248
3a40aaa0
UW
2249* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2250symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2251-Bsymbolic linker option.
2252
a6ec25f2
BW
2253* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2254recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2255is not supported.
2256
6dd09645
JB
2257* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2258frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2259
c9bb8148
DJ
2260* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
226132-bit or 64-bit register values.
2262
0d5de010
DJ
2263* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2264
23181151
DJ
2265* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2266target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2267a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2268
ea37ba09
DJ
2269* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2270automatically displayed as character or string data.
2271
2272* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2273arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2274as strings.
e1f48ead 2275
123dc839
DJ
2276* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2277for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2278only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2279
05a4558a
DJ
2280* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2281iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2282
7c963485
PA
2283* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2284ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2285has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2286
b18be20d
DJ
2287* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2288
0ca420ce
UW
2289* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2290
31d99776
DJ
2291* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2292layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2293segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2294
a4642986
MR
2295* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2296immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2297
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2298* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2299"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2300packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2301where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2302Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2303
2304* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2305(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2306
2307* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2308according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2309
c9bb8148
DJ
2310* New commands
2311
23776285
MR
2312set remoteflow
2313show remoteflow
2314 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2315 when debugging using remote targets.
2316
c9bb8148
DJ
2317set mem inaccessible-by-default
2318show mem inaccessible-by-default
2319 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2320 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2321 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2322 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2323 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2324
2325set breakpoint auto-hw
2326show breakpoint auto-hw
2327 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2328 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2329 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2330 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2331 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2332 including "next" and "finish".
2333
0e420bd8
JB
2334catch exception
2335catch exception unhandled
2336 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2337
2338catch assert
2339 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2340
f822c95b
DJ
2341set sysroot
2342show sysroot
2343 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2344 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2345 an alias to "set sysroot".
2346
83cc5c53
UW
2347info spu
2348 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2349 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2350 architecture.
2351
bd372731
MK
2352* New native configurations
2353
2354OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2355
23181151
DJ
2356set tdesc filename
2357unset tdesc filename
2358show tdesc filename
2359 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2360 not query the target for its built-in description.
2361
c9bb8148
DJ
2362* New targets
2363
54fe9172 2364OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2365MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2366Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2367
6dd09645
JB
2368* New remote packets
2369
2370QPassSignals:
2371 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2372 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2373
23181151
DJ
2374qXfer:features:read:
2375 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2376 features.
6dd09645 2377
83cc5c53
UW
2378qXfer:spu:read:
2379qXfer:spu:write:
2380 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2381 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2382
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2383qXfer:libraries:read:
2384 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2385 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2386 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2387 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2388
483367ee
DJ
2389* Removed targets
2390
2391Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2392
d08950c4
UW
2393alpha*-*-osf1*
2394alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2395d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2396hppa*-*-hiux*
2397i[34567]86-ncr-*
2398i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2399i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2400i[34567]86-*-netware*
2401i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2402i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2403i[34567]86-*-sco*
2404i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2405i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2406i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2407i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2408i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2409i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2410i[34567]86-*-isc*
2411m68*-cisco*-*
2412m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2413mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2414rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2415sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2416
7ce59000
DJ
2417* Other removed features
2418
2419target abug
2420target cpu32bug
2421target est
2422target rom68k
2423
2424 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2425
ea35711c
DJ
2426target hms
2427target e7000
2428target sh3
2429target sh3e
2430
2431 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2432 H8/300.
2433
2434target ocd
2435
2436 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2437 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2438 interfaces.
2439
7ce59000
DJ
2440DWARF 1 support
2441
2442 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2443 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2444
54d61198
DJ
2445Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2446
2447 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2448 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2449 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2450 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2451
ea35711c
DJ
2452MIPS ".pdr" sections
2453
2454 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2455 in debugging information.
2456
2457Scheme support
2458
2459 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2460 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2461
1a69e1e4
DJ
2462set mips stack-arg-size
2463set mips saved-gpreg-size
2464
2465 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2466
6dd09645 2467*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2468
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2469* New targets
2470
2471Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2472Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2473
6aec2e11
DJ
2474* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2475(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2476running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2477
2478* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2479Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2480supported.
2481
17218d91
DJ
2482* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2483broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2484
9ebce043
DJ
2485* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2486stub provides the required support.
2487
7d3d3ece
DJ
2488* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2489longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2490
4f8253f3
JB
2491* New commands
2492
2493set substitute-path
2494unset substitute-path
2495show substitute-path
2496 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2497 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2498 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2499 between compilation and debugging.
2500
9fa66fd7
AS
2501set trace-commands
2502show trace-commands
2503 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2504 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2505 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2506
1f5befc1
DJ
2507* REMOVED features
2508
2509The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2510
2ec3381a
DJ
2511Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2512an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2513
3d00d119
DJ
2514The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2515
be2a5f71
DJ
2516* New remote packets
2517
2518qSupported:
2519 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2520 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2521 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2522 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2523 target.
2524
0876f84a
DJ
2525qXfer:auxv:read:
2526 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2527 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2528
9ebce043
DJ
2529qXfer:memory-map:read:
2530 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2531 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2532
2533vFlashErase:
2534vFlashWrite:
2535vFlashDone:
2536 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2537
0876f84a
DJ
2538* Removed remote packets
2539
2540qPart:auxv:read:
2541 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2542 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2543
e374b601 2544*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2545
96309189
MS
2546* New targets
2547
2548Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2549
2550Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2551
53e5f3cf
AS
2552* New commands
2553
2554init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2555 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2556
ac264b3b
MS
2557The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2558
2559checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2560
2561restart <n> Return the program state to a
2562 previously saved state.
2563
2564info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2565
2566delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2567
2568set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2569 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2570
2571info forks List forks of the user program that
2572 are available to be debugged.
2573
2574fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2575 forks of the user program that are
2576 available to be debugged.
2577
2578delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2579 that are available to be debugged (and
2580 kill the forked process).
2581
2582detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2583 that are available to be debugged (and
2584 allow the process to continue).
2585
3950dc3f
NS
2586* New architecture
2587
2588Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2589
0ea3f30e
DJ
2590* Improved Windows host support
2591
2592GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2593native console support, and remote communications using either
2594network sockets or serial ports.
2595
f79daebb
GM
2596* Improved Modula-2 language support
2597
2598GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2599basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2600pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2601printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2602written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2603GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2604
acab6ab2
MM
2605* REMOVED features
2606
2607The ARM rdi-share module.
2608
f4267320
DJ
2609The Netware NLM debug server.
2610
53e5f3cf 2611*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2612
e0ecbda1
MK
2613* New native configurations
2614
02a677ac 2615OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2616OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2617
d64a6579
KB
2618* New targets
2619
2620Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2621
b33a6190
AS
2622* New command line options
2623
2624--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2625--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2626 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2627--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2628 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2629 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2630 with the --command (-x) option.
2631
11dced61
AC
2632* Deprecated commands removed
2633
2634The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2635removed:
2636
2637 Command Replacement
2638 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2639 othernames set arm disassembler
2640 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2641 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2642 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2643 regs info registers
2644
6fe85783
MK
2645* New BSD user-level threads support
2646
2647It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2648library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2649configurations are:
2650
2651FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2652FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2653OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2654
2655Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2656are not yet supported.
2657
5260ca71
MS
2658* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2659(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2660
e84ecc99
AC
2661* REMOVED configurations and files
2662
2663VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2664Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2665National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2666
31e35378
JB
2667* New "set print array-indexes" command
2668
2669After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2670when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2671behavior.
2672
e85e5c83
MK
2673* VAX floating point support
2674
2675GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2676
d91e9901
AS
2677* User-defined command support
2678
2679In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2680to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2681section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2682
f2cb65ca
MC
2683*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2684
f47b1503
AS
2685* New command line option
2686
2687GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2688debugging.
2689
f2cb65ca
MC
2690* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2691
2692GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2693information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2694by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2695proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2696to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2697
d08c0230
AC
2698* Internationalization
2699
2700When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2701internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2702continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2703
117ea3cf
PH
2704* Ada
2705
2706Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2707implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2708into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2709
d08c0230
AC
2710* New native configurations
2711
2712GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2713
2714* Remote 'p' packet
2715
2716GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2717packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2718
2719* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2720
2721GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2722The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2723features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2724i386 application).
2725
2726GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2727compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2728continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2729configurations:
2730
2731hppa-*-hpux
2732ia64-*-aix
2733mips-*-irix*
2734*-*-lynx
2735mips-*-linux-gnu
2736sds protocol
2737xdr protocol
2738powerpc bdm protocol
2739
2740Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2741made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2742
2743* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2744
2745Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2746been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2747configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2748permanently REMOVED.
2749
2750h8300-*-*
2751mcore-*-*
2752mn10300-*-*
2753ns32k-*-*
2754sh64-*-*
2755v850-*-*
2756
ebb7c577
AC
2757*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2758
2759* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2760
2761When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2762heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2763been fixed.
2764
2765* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2766
2767When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2768fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2769IRIX long double values).
2770
2771* VAX and "next"
2772
2773A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2774command. This problem has been fixed.
2775
860660cb 2776*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2777
0dea2468
AC
2778* Fix for ``many threads''
2779
2780On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2781rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2782error message:
2783
2784 ptrace: No such process.
2785 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2786
2787This problem has been fixed.
2788
2c07db7a
AC
2789* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2790
2791Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2792GDB to dump core).
2793
c23968a2
JB
2794* New ``start'' command.
2795
2796This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2797
71009278
MK
2798* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2799
2800Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2801live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2802platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2803
2804FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2805FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2806NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2807NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2808NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2809OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2810OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2811OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2812OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2813
3c0b7db2
AC
2814* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2815
2816Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2817These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2818of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2819call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2820signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2821
73cc75f3
AC
2822Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2823features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2824include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2825
7243600a
BF
2826* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2827
6f606e1c
MK
2828* New native configurations
2829
97dc871c 2830GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2831OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2832OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2833OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2834OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2835NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2836OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2837
a1b461bf
AC
2838* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2839
2840GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2841The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2842including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2843migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2844compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2845work, was also included.
2846
2847GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2848module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2849
2850h8300-*-*
2851mcore-*-*
2852mn10300-*-*
2853ns32k-*-*
2854sh64-*-*
2855v850-*-*
2856xstormy16-*-*
2857
2858Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2859made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2860
3c7012f5
AC
2861* REMOVED configurations and files
2862
2863Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2864Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2865Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2866Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2867Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2868AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2869Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2870decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2871riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2872sonymips mips-sony-*
2873sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2874
e5fe55f7
AC
2875*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2876
2877* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2878
2879The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2880GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2881command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2882program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2883with GDB".
2884
2885* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2886
2887Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2888libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2889cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2890GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2891shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2892the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2893are created.
2894
2895Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2896
2897* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2898
2899The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2900non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2901compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2902
2903* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2904
2905Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2906wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2907
2908* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2909
2910The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2911permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2912systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2913
2914* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2915
2916Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2917has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2918
2919* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2920
2921GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2922its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2923panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2924
2925* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2926
2927When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2928by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2929not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2930
faae5abe 2931*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2932
9175c9a3
MC
2933* Removed --with-mmalloc
2934
2935Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2936conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2937
3cc87ec0
MK
2938* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2939
2940The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2941the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2942and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2943you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2944
f0424ef6
MK
2945* Revised SPARC target
2946
2947The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2948FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2949support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2950from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2951(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2952
59659be2
ILT
2953* New C++ demangler
2954
2955GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2956names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2957with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2958programs.
2959
9e08b29b
DJ
2960* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2961
2962GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2963arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2964encountered these.
2965
8dfe8985
DC
2966* C++ nested types and namespaces
2967
2968GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2969improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2970is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2971Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2972namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2973"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2974frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2975if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2976GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2977
cced5e27
MK
2978* New native configurations
2979
2980NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2981OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2982OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2983OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2984OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2985
b4b4b794
KI
2986* New debugging protocols
2987
2988M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2989
7989c619
AC
2990* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2991
2992The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2993and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2994tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2995
5994185b
AC
2996* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2997
2998Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2999been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3000configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3001permanently REMOVED.
3002
3003Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3004Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3005Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3006Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3007Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3008AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3009Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3010decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3011riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3012sonymips mips-sony-*
3013sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3014
0ddabb4c
AC
3015* REMOVED configurations and files
3016
3017SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3018SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3019Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3020Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3021H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3022HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3023HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3024HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3025PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3026386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3027Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3028 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3029 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3030SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3031SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3032Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3033Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3034
c7f1390e
DJ
3035*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3036
1fe43d45
AC
3037* Objective-C
3038
3039Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3040integrated into GDB.
3041
e6beb428
AC
3042* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3043
3044DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3045information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3046By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3047backtraces.
3048
3049The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3050have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3051DWARF 2 CFI support.
3052
3053* Hosted file I/O.
3054
3055GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3056file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3057remote protocol documentation for details.
3058
3059* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3060
3061All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3062architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3063to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3064ppc32 on ppc64).
3065
3066* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3067
3068GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3069per-thread variables.
3070
3071* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3072
3073GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3074GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3075
3076* Separate debug info.
3077
3078GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3079automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3080of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3081system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3082and optional debug files.
3083
3084* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3085
3086DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3087describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3088debugger.
3089
3090GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3091for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3092
3093* Java
3094
3095A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3096Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3097considered "useable".
3098
85f8f974
DJ
3099* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3100
3101The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3102commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3103kernel.
3104
0fac0b41
DJ
3105* GDB supports logging output to a file
3106
3107There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3108used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3109
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3110* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3111
3112The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3113disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3114command.
3115
e286caf2 3116* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3117
3118The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3119registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3120
d28f9cdf
DJ
3121* Profiling support
3122
3123A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3124be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3125session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3126"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3127data, for more informative profiling results.
3128
da0f9dcd
AC
3129* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3130
3131The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3132option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3133"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3134
3135Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3136removed.
3137
fb9b6b35
JJ
3138Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3139Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3140Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3141 in a subsequent -var-update.
3142
954a4db8
MK
3143* New native configurations.
3144
3145FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3146
6760f9e6
JB
3147* Multi-arched targets.
3148
b4263afa 3149HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3150Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3151
1b831c93
AC
3152* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3153
3154Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3155been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3156configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3157permanently REMOVED.
3158
8b0e5691 3159Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3160Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3161H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3162HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3163HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3164HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3165PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3166Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3167 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3168 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3169Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3170Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3171
5835abe7
NC
3172* REMOVED configurations and files
3173
3174V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3175Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3176IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3177i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3178i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3179i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3180HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3181 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3182 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3183Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3184Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3185Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3186OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3187I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3188
a094c6fb
AC
3189* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3190
3191The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3192the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3193context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3194address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3195The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3196
299ffc64 3197*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3198
46248966
AC
3199* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3200
3201When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3202`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3203in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3204library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3205shared libs like mad''.
3206
b9d14705 3207* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3208
b9d14705
DJ
3209Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3210the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3211arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3212powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3213
e0e9281e
JB
3214* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3215
3216GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3217and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3218they expand.
3219
dd73b9bb
AC
3220The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3221invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3222
3223The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3224macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3225
e0e9281e
JB
3226Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3227information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3228your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3229information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3230
2250ee0c
CV
3231* Multi-arched targets.
3232
6e3ba3b8
JT
3233DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3234DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3235NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3236National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3237Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3238Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3239
cd9bfe15 3240* New targets.
e33ce519 3241
456f8b9d
DB
3242Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3243
e33ce519 3244
da8ca43d
JT
3245* New native configurations
3246
3247Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3248SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3249MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3250UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3251
cd9bfe15
AC
3252* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3253
3254Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3255been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3256configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3257permanently REMOVED.
3258
92eb23c5 3259Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3260OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3261IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3262Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3263Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3264Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3265i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3266i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3267i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3268HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3269 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3270 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3271I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3272
db034ac5
AC
3273* OBSOLETE languages
3274
3275CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3276
cd9bfe15
AC
3277* REMOVED configurations and files
3278
3279AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3280A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3281AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3282AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3283AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3284
3285testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3286
20f01a46
DH
3287* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3288
3289This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3290commands. The default is 1024.
3291
a5941fbf
MK
3292* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3293
3294Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3295
89743e04
MS
3296* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3297
3298These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3299to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3300from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3301
9fb14e79
JB
3302* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3303
3304The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3305including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3306of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3307
2037aebb
AC
3308*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3309
3310* New targets.
3311
3312Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3313
3314* Bug fixes
3315
3316gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3317mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3318Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3319
3320gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3321dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3322Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3323
3324Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3325Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3326By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3327
3328i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3329avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3330By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3331
37057839 3332*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3333
1a703748
MS
3334* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3335
3336This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3337really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3338In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3339target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3340This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3341(notably embedded) targets.
3342
cefd4ef5
MS
3343* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3344
55241689
AC
3345This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3346process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3347GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3348hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3349
352ed7b4
MS
3350* New command line option
3351
3352GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3353
3354* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3355
3356There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3357command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3358a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3359be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3360open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3361issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3362a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3363it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3364GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3365is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3366
fe419ffc
RE
3367* Changes in ARM configurations.
3368
3369Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3370configuration is fully multi-arch.
3371
eb7cedd9
MK
3372* New native configurations
3373
fe419ffc 3374ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3375x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3376AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3377Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3378
c9f63e6b
CV
3379* New targets
3380
3381Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3382
9b4ff276
AC
3383* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3384
3385Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3386been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3387configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3388permanently REMOVED.
3389
3390AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3391A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3392AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3393AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3394AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3395
b4ceaee6 3396testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3397
e2caac18
AC
3398* REMOVED configurations and files
3399
3400TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3401WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3402PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3403PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3404PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3405Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3406Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3407 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3408SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3409Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3410Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3411ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3412Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3413
c2a727fa
TT
3414* Changes to command line processing
3415
3416The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3417for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3418
467d8519
TT
3419* Changes to key bindings
3420
3421There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3422
7072a954
AC
3423*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3424
3425Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3426
3427Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3428corrupted.
3429
3430Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3431
3432Numerous documentation fixes.
3433
3434Numerous testsuite fixes.
3435
34f47bc4 3436*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3437
3438* New native configurations
3439
3440Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3441x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3442MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3443MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3444ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3445s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3446
bf64bfd6
AC
3447* New targets
3448
def90278 3449Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3450CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3451UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3452
17e78a56 3453* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3454
3455x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3456Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3457Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3458 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3459TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3460WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3461Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3462PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3463PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3464PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3465SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3466Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3467ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3468Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3469
17e78a56
AC
3470stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3471kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3472
7fcca85b
AC
3473Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3474been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3475configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3476permanently REMOVED.
3477
a196c81c 3478* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3479
3480Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3481Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3482Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3483ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3484Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3485ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3486
6d6b80e5 3487* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3488
6d6b80e5 3489GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3490sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3491present.
3492
bf64bfd6
AC
3493* Other news:
3494
e23194cb
EZ
3495* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3496
3497* The MI enabled by default.
3498
3499The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3500revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3501engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3502using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3503which is now deprecated.
3504
3505* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3506
3507GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3508main features are supported:
3509
3510 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3511
3512 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3513 extension;
3514
3515 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3516
3517 - a Pascal expression parser.
3518
3519However, some important features are not yet supported.
3520
3521 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3522
3523 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3524
3525 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3526 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3527
3528 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3529
3530 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3531
3532* Changes in completion.
3533
3534Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3535to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3536users expect at the shell prompt.
3537
3538Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3539`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3540program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3541files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3542be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3543considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3544name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3545
3546`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3547
3548* New platform-independent commands:
3549
3550It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3551hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3552documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3553
3554* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3555
d7275149
MK
3556Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3557revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3558many threads as your system allows you to have.
3559
e23194cb
EZ
3560Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3561
d7275149
MK
3562Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3563multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3564
3565* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3566
3567Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3568
e23194cb
EZ
3569GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3570debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3571supported.)
3572
3573* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3574
3575Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3576breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3577implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3578put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3579and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3580registers.
3581
3582The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3583debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3584watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3585
3586* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3587
3588New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3589the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3590
3591New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3592display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3593IDT.
3594
3595New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3596from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3597New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3598a given linear address.
3599
3600GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3601program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3602which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3603
3604DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3605
6c56c069
EZ
3606It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3607
e23194cb
EZ
3608* Changes in documentation.
3609
3610All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3611Documentation License.
3612
3613Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3614manual.
3615
3616TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3617
3618Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3619manual.
3620
3621The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3622documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3623hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3624
5d6640b1
AC
3625* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3626
3627The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3628``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3629contents of this file.
3630
1a1d8446
AC
3631* gdba.el deleted
3632
3633GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3634
9debab2f 3635*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3636
c63ce875
EZ
3637* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3638
3639Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3640programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3641displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3642greater level of detail.
3643
3644* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3645
3646It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3647bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3648on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3649written.
3650
3651* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3652
3653The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3654necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3655machines ``out of the box''.
3656
3657The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3658possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3659signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3660would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3661interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3662
3663It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3664standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3665even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3666and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3667terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3668
3669The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3670enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3671also works.
3672
3673DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3674GDB.
3675
3676It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3677directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3678times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3679breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3680
ed9a39eb
JM
3681* New native configurations
3682
3683ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3684PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3685
7a292a7a
SS
3686* New targets
3687
96baa820 3688Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3689x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3690PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3691TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3692
085dd6e6
JM
3693* OBSOLETE configurations
3694
3695Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3696Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3697Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3698ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3699Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3700
9debab2f
AC
3701Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3702but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3703these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3704be permanently REMOVED.
3705
5330533d
SS
3706* Gould support removed
3707
3708Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3709
bc9e5bbf
AC
3710* New features for SVR4
3711
3712On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3713without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3714load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3715
3716* Many C++ enhancements
3717
3718C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3719in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3720
adf40b2e
JM
3721* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3722
3723A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3724sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3725with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3726``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3727
3728 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3729 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3730
43e526b9
JM
3731* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3732
3733A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3734expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3735instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3736
3737The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3738added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3739
96baa820
JM
3740* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3741
3742The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3743``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3744include ``set remote P-packet''.
3745
11cf8741
JM
3746* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3747
3748The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3749accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3750``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3751
7876dd43
DB
3752* ``apropos'' command added.
3753
3754The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3755documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3756try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3757
bc9e5bbf
AC
3758* New MI interface
3759
3760A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3761interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3762process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3763"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3764enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3765
3766 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3767
c906108c
SS
3768*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3769
3770* New native configurations
3771
3772HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3773HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3774M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3775
3776* New targets
3777
3778Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3779Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3780Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3781
3782* OBSOLETE configurations
3783
3784Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3785
3786Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3787but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3788these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3789be permanently REMOVED.
3790
3791* ANSI/ISO C
3792
3793As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3794buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3795containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3796use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3797available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3798configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3799information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3800already.
3801
3802* Readline 2.2
3803
3804GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3805
3806* set extension-language
3807
3808You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3809languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3810you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3811 set extension-language .c c++
3812The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3813and their associated languages.
3814
3815* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3816
3817When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3818you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3819PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3820
3821 set processor NAME
3822
3823sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3824following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3825
3826 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3827 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3828 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3829 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3830 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3831 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3832 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3833 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3834 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3835 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3836 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3837
3838At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3839special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3840registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3841only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3842
3843* HP-UX support
3844
3845Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3846more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3847library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3848support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3849for xdb and dbx commands.
3850
3851* Catchpoints
3852
3853HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3854generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3855to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3856
3857This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3858argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3859output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3860
3861* Debugging across forks
3862
3863On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3864in the inferior.
3865
3866* TUI
3867
3868HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3869it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3870configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3871
3872* GDB remote protocol additions
3873
3874A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3875Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3876fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3877allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3878
3879For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3880full 64-bit address. The command
3881
3882 set remoteaddresssize 32
3883
3884can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3885the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3886will be discarded.
3887
3888In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3889command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3890
3891 maint packet heythere
3892
3893sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3894disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3895time.
3896
3897The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3898target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3899downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3900
3901* Tracing can collect general expressions
3902
3903You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3904further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3905doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3906
3907* mask-address variable for Mips
3908
3909For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3910a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3911of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3912
3913* Higher serial baud rates
3914
3915GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3916230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3917to achieve all of these rates.)
3918
3919* i960 simulator
3920
3921The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3922builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3923
3924
3925*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3926
3927* New native configurations
3928
3929Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3930Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3931Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3932PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3933PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3934Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3935Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3936
3937* New targets
3938
3939Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3940Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3941Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3942Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3943MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3944MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3945MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3946Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3947Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3948Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3949NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3950
3951* New debugging protocols
3952
3953ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3954M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3955DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3956PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3957PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3958Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3959
3960* DWARF 2
3961
3962All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3963format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3964information.
3965
3966* Java frontend
3967
3968GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3969only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3970
3971* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3972
3973For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3974loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3975locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3976
3977* Live range splitting
3978
3979GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3980range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3981more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3982
3983* Hurd support
3984
3985GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3986updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3987
3988* ARM Thumb support
3989
3990GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3991instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3992instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3993accordingly.
3994
3995* MIPS16 support
3996
3997GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3998instruction set.
3999
4000* Overlay support
4001
4002GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4003linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4004will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4005control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4006additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4007in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4008
4009* info symbol
4010
4011The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4012the symbol at the specified address.
4013
4014* Trace support
4015
4016The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4017asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4018extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4019includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4020file tracepoint.c for more details.
4021
4022* MIPS simulator
4023
4024Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4025by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4026of most MIPS variants.
4027
4028* Sparc simulator
4029
4030Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4031by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4032Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4033
4034* set architecture
4035
4036For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4037basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4038architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4039the possible architectures.
4040
4041*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4042
4043* New native configurations
4044
4045Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4046M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4047PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4048PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4049PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4050RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4051
4052* New targets
4053
4054ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4055I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4056MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4057MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4058PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4059Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4060Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4061
4062* PowerPC simulator
4063
4064The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4065contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4066PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4067basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4068performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4069
4070* Solaris 2.5
4071
4072GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4073
4074* Windows 95/NT native
4075
4076GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4077To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4078which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4079Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4080ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4081
4082* dont-repeat command
4083
4084If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4085command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4086useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4087extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4088
4089* Send break instead of ^C
4090
4091The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4092rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4093GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4094
4095* Remote protocol timeout
4096
4097The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4098that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4099to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4100
4101* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4102
4103By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4104loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4105stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4106when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4107in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4108
4109Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4110/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4111automatically on hpux10.
4112
4113* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4114
4115Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4116
4117* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4118
4119When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4120may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4121the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4122every character. The default value is 1050.
4123
4124* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4125
4126If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4127a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4128replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4129details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4130remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4131to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4132
4133* Speedups for remote debugging
4134
4135GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4136the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4137and more efficient S-record downloading.
4138
4139* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4140
4141GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4142Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4143
4144*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4145
4146* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4147
4148The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4149can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4150
4151* Remote targets use caching
4152
4153Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4154remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4155it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4156debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4157off' turns the the data cache off.
4158
4159* Remote targets may have threads
4160
4161The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4162in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4163gdb/remote.c for details.
4164
4165* NetROM support
4166
4167If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4168support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4169acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4170write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4171support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4172another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4173sequence is something like
4174
4175 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4176 load <prog>
4177 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4178
4179* Macintosh host
4180
4181GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4182may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4183it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4184available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4185device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4186directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4187scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4188mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4189
4190* Autoconf
4191
4192GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4193but does simplify configuration and building.
4194
4195* hpux10
4196
4197GDB now supports hpux10.
4198
4199*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4200
4201* New native configurations
4202
4203x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4204x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4205NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4206Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4207
4208* New targets
4209
4210A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4211HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4212CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4213PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4214WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4215
4216* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4217
4218GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4219possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4220filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4221the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4222if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4223
4224* Arguments to user-defined commands
4225
4226User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4227Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4228trivial example:
4229define adder
4230 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4231
4232To execute the command use:
4233adder 1 2 3
4234
4235Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4236Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4237use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4238
4239* New `if' and `while' commands
4240
4241This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4242commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4243expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4244execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4245terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4246`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4247if the expression is zero.
4248
4249* Fortran source language mode
4250
4251GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4252Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4253variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4254with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4255Fortran compilers.
4256
4257* Better HPUX support
4258
4259Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4260running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4261processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4262for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4263that behavior do the following before running the program:
4264
4265 adb -w a.out
4266 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4267 control-d
4268
4269This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4270To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4271
4272 adb -w a.out
4273 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4274 control-d
4275
4276You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4277the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4278external linkage.
4279
4280GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4281HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4282
4283* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4284
4285You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4286commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4287current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4288"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4289associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4290configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4291
4292* New DOS host serial code
4293
4294This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4295no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4296a PC's serial port.
4297
4298*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4299
4300* New "complete" command
4301
4302This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4303were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4304
4305* Trailing space optional in prompt
4306
4307"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4308allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4309
4310* Breakpoint hit counts
4311
4312"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4313has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4314can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4315to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4316less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4317that breakpoint.
4318
4319* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4320
4321"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4322an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4323arrays actually contain only short strings.
4324
4325* Shared library breakpoints
4326
4327In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4328breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4329
4330* Hardware watchpoints
4331
4332There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4333targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4334
55241689 4335Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4336
4337* Annotations
4338
4339Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4340and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4341
4342* Improved Irix 5 support
4343
4344GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4345
4346* Improved HPPA support
4347
4348GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4349
4350* New native configurations
4351
4352Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4353HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4354Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4355RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4356
4357* New targets
4358
4359OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4360MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4361Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4362
4363* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4364
4365There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4366This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4367
4368* Fixes
4369
4370As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4371and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4372
4373*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4374
4375* Irix 5 is now supported
4376
4377* HPPA support
4378
4379GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4380to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4381GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4382of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4383can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4384
4385
4386*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4387
4388* User visible changes:
4389
4390* Remote Debugging
4391
4392The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4393target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4394debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4395integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4396debugging info for the mips target).
4397
4398* DEC Alpha native support
4399
4400GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4401debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4402work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4403Alpha-specific notes.
4404
4405* Preliminary thread implementation
4406
4407GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4408
4409* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4410
4411This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4412to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4413for details).
4414
4415* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4416
4417This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4418mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4419call methods, ...etc.
4420
4421*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4422
4423 * User visible changes:
4424
4425Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4426supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4427other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4428somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4429
4430Filename completion now works.
4431
4432When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4433arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4434addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4435
4436All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4437vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4438should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4439your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4440to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4441
4442 * DEC alpha support
4443
4444This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4445cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4446
4447
4448*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4449
4450 * Testsuite
4451
4452This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4453The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4454via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4455
4456 * C++ demangling
4457
4458'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4459emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4460Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4461disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4462use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4463
4464 * Simulators
4465
4466GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4467So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4468Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4469
4470 * New targets supported
4471
4472H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4473H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4474SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4475Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4476IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4477
4478Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4479version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4480GO32 memory extender.
4481
4482 * New remote protocols
4483
4484MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4485
4486 * New source languages supported
4487
4488This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4489used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4490into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4491
4492
4493*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4494
4495 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4496
4497GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4498version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4499University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4500compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4501format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4502(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4503
4504Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4505
4506 * Faster and better demangling
4507
4508We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4509demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4510character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4511only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4512This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4513increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4514symbol lookups.
4515
4516`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4517from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4518compiler does not actually implement.
4519
4520 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4521
4522In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4523inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4524recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4525very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4526The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4527circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4528fix.
4529
4530The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4531release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4532
4533 * Improved configure script
4534
4535The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4536you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4537host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4538done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4539
4540We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4541version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4542`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4543The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4544only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4545We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4546
4547 * Documentation improvements
4548
4549There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4550produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4551before submitting changes.
4552
4553The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4554M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4555`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4556you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4557a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4558
4559*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4560We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4561been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4562or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4563`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4564around this problem.
4565
4566 * New features
4567
4568GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4569the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4570`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4571the target program.
4572
4573The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4574how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4575
4576 * New native hosts supported
4577
4578HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4579386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4580
4581 * New targets supported
4582
4583AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4584
4585 * New file formats supported
4586
4587BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4588HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4589
4590 * Major bug fixes
4591
4592Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4593
4594We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4595printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4596
4597We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4598for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4599release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4600
4601You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4602will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4603
4604We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4605for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4606especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4607libraries.
4608
4609The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4610information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4611command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4612any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4613when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4614
4615 * Internal improvements
4616
4617GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4618debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4619
4620GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4621Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4622symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4623contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4624shared code that handles any of them.
4625
4626 * New command line options
4627
4628We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4629
4630 * Mmalloc licensing
4631
4632The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4633General Public License.
4634
4635*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4636
4637 * Host/native/target split
4638
4639GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4640hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4641target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4642local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4643ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4644
4645The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4646GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4647is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4648code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4649any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4650built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4651handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4652
4653GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4654It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4655plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4656
4657 * New hosts supported
4658
4659HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4660386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4661386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4662
4663 * New targets supported
4664
4665Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
466668030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4667
4668 * New native hosts supported
4669
4670386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4671 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4672386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4673
4674 * New file formats supported
4675
4676BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4677supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4678format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4679
4680 * New commands
4681
4682`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4683`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4684These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4685
4686`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4687
4688You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4689scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4690prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4691executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4692
4693 * C++ improvements
4694
4695We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4696info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4697symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4698
4699Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4700
4701 * Major bug fixes
4702
4703The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4704fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4705by the compiler.
4706
4707We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4708support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4709
4710John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4711slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4712that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4713purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4714the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4715mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4716
4717Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4718about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4719completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4720we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4721
4722 * AMD 29k support
4723
4724A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4725specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4726calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4727usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4728in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4729
4730We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4731Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4732of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4733resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4734
4735 * Remote interfaces
4736
4737We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4738with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4739message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4740This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4741needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4742breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4743each instruction being stepped through.
4744
4745The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4746registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4747
4748There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4749find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4750Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4751processor with a serial port.
4752
4753 * Configuration
4754
4755Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4756`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4757supported, and what files each one uses.
4758
4759 * Library changes
4760
4761There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4762disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4763Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4764disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4765
4766The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4767Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4768can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4769grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4770
4771 * Documentation
4772
4773The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4774reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4775as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4776encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4777system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4778bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4779
4780And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4781
4782
4783*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4784
4785 * Better support for C++ function names
4786
4787GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4788names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4789(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4790single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4791Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4792
4793GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4794the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4795You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4796lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4797for the list of formats.
4798
4799 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4800
4801Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4802C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4803directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4804can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4805usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4806about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4807this problem.)
4808
4809 * New 'maintenance' command
4810
4811All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4812the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4813can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4814
4815 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4816 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4817 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4818 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4819 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4820 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4821
4822The following commands are new:
4823
4824 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4825 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4826 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4827
4828 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4829
4830We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4831(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4832be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4833read after argv processing.
4834
4835 * New hosts supported
4836
4837Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4838
55241689 4839GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4840
4841We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4842is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4843for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4844masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4845fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4846It costs extra.
4847
4848 * New targets supported
4849
4850Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4851
4852 * More smarts about finding #include files
4853
4854GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4855all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4856greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4857especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4858the one that contains your sources.
4859
4860We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4861breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4862try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4863
4864 * Interesting infernals change
4865
4866GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4867section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4868target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4869stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4870
4871 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4872
4873There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4874 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4875 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4876
4877See the ChangeLog for details.
4878
4879*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4880
4881 * New machines supported (host and target)
4882
4883IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4884
4885SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4886
4887 * New malloc package
4888
4889GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4890Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4891capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4892This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4893pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4894more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4895
4896 * info proc
4897
4898The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4899'help info proc' for details.
4900
4901 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4902
4903The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4904Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4905possible.
4906
4907 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4908
4909Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4910support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4911conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4912environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4913that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4914in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4915
4916 * Cross byte order fixes
4917
4918Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4919targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4920
4921 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4922
4923If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4924system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4925`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4926program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4927called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4928Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4929and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4930the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4931option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4932starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4933
4934You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4935the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4936information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4937slower, but makes future operations faster.
4938
4939The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4940build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4941A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4942use is:
4943
4944 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4945
4946The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4947It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4948shared across multiple host platforms.
4949
4950 * longjmp() handling
4951
4952GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4953siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4954all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4955platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4956
4957 * Solaris 2.0
4958
4959Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4960this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4961reading symbols.
4962
4963 * Bug fixes
4964
4965As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4966People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4967crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4968
4969*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4970
4971 * New machines supported (host and target)
4972
4973SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4974 (except core files)
4975BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4976Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4977
4978 * New machines supported (target)
4979
4980AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4981
4982 * C++ support
4983
4984GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4985The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4986per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4987
4988GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4989`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4990extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4991good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4992will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4993released.
4994
4995 * New features for SVR4
4996
4997GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4998shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4999only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5000
5001The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5002on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5003it prints the address mappings of the process.
5004
5005If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5006bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5007
5008 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5009
5010Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5011now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5012skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5013make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5014same code linked statically.
5015
5016 * New Getopt
5017
5018GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5019version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5020continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5021Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5022added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5023future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5024
5025 * Bugs fixed
5026
5027The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5028Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5029See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5030
5031
5032*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5033
5034 * New machines supported (host and target)
5035
5036Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5037NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5038Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5039
5040 * Almost SCO Unix support
5041
5042We had hoped to support:
5043SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5044(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5045that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5046about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5047
5048 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5049
5050GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5051debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5052is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5053send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5054reqired (if any).
5055
5056 * New Readline
5057
5058GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5059is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5060required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5061
5062 * Bugs fixed
5063
5064The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5065Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5066See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5067
5068 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5069
5070GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5071supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5072symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5073
5074Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5075mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5076debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5077mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5078version 2.
5079
5080Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5081really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5082line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5083variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5084situation somewhat.
5085
5086When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5087However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5088methods.
5089
5090We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5091DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5092encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5093
5094
5095*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5096
5097 * Improved configuration
5098
5099Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5100Porting BFD is simpler.
5101
5102 * Stepping improved
5103
5104The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5105of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5106in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5107function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5108
5109 * Bug fixing
5110
5111Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5112
5113 * New host supported (not target)
5114
5115Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5116
5117
5118*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5119
5120 * Multiple source language support
5121
5122GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5123It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5124and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5125language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5126You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5127`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5128
5129 * GDB and Modula-2
5130
5131GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5132currently under development at the State University of New York at
5133Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5134continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5135
5136Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5137debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5138symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5139
5140There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5141in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5142
5143 * set write on/off
5144
5145GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5146a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5147the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5148by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5149effect immediately.
5150
5151 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5152
5153When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5154shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5155The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5156examining core files.
5157
5158 * set listsize
5159
5160You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5161The default is 10.
5162
5163 * New machines supported (host and target)
5164
5165SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5166Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5167Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5168
5169 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5170
5171IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5172
5173 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5174
5175AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5176AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5177Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5178
5179 * New remote interfaces
5180
5181AMD 29000 Adapt
5182AMD 29000 Minimon
5183
5184
5185*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5186
5187 * New Facilities
5188
5189Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5190
5191Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5192target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5193is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5194remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5195remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5196also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5197using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5198stub on the target system.
5199
5200New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5201
5202GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5203library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5204object file types such as a.out and coff.
5205
5206There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5207refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5208
5209
5210 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5211
5212All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5213by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5214
5215For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5216``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5217Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5218
5219What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5220print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5221will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5222all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5223
5224confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5225 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5226 it is already running. Default is ON.
5227
5228editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5229 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5230 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5231 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5232 Default is ON.
5233
5234history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5235 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5236 or the value of the environment variable
5237 GDBHISTFILE.
5238
5239history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5240 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5241 HISTSIZE.
5242
5243history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5244 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5245 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5246
5247history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5248 history expansion will be performed on
5249 command line input. The default is OFF.
5250
5251radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5252 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5253 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5254
5255height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5256 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5257 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5258 variable TERM.
5259
5260width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5261 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5262 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5263 variable TERM.
5264
5265Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5266``set width'' instead.
5267
5268print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5269 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5270 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5271 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5272
5273print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5274 is OFF.
5275
5276print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5277 "raw" form if off.
5278
5279print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5280 like instructions.
5281
5282print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5283
5284
5285 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5286
5287The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5288new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5289are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5290window.
5291
5292
5293 * Support for Shared Libraries
5294
5295GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5296Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5297before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5298happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5299At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5300from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5301shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5302It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5303
5304sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5305 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5306 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5307
5308info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5309
5310
5311 * Watchpoints
5312
5313A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5314expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5315tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5316quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5317problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5318more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5319
5320watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5321
5322info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5323
5324delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5325disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5326enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5327
5328
5329 * C++ multiple inheritance
5330
5331When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5332for C++ programs.
5333
5334 * C++ exception handling
5335
5336Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5337ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5338the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5339handler's context).
5340
5341catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5342 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5343 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5344
5345info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5346 current stack frame.
5347
5348
5349 * Minor command changes
5350
5351The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5352command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5353is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5354
5355The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5356at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5357frames without printing.
5358
5359 * New directory command
5360
5361'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5362The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5363about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5364with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5365find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5366
5367 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5368
5369For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5370for more details.
5371
5372GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5373two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5374Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5375where the program that you are debugging will run.
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