2003-06-08 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[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 5.3:
5
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6* d10v `regs' command deprecated
7
8The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
10
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11* Profiling support
12
13A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17data, for more informative profiling results.
18
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19* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
20
21The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 23"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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24
25Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
26removed.
27
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28Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
32
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33* Multi-arched targets.
34
35HP/PA HPUX11, 32bit ABI (partial) hppa*-*-hpux* except hppa*64*-*-hpux11*
36
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37* OBSOLETE configurations and files
38
39Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
40been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
41configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
42permanently REMOVED.
43
05d57f6f 44Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
8b0e5691 45Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 46Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 47H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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48HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
49HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
50HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 51PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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52Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
53 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
54 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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55Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
56Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 57
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58* REMOVED configurations and files
59
60V850EA ISA
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61Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
62IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
63i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
64i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
65i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
66HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
67 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
68 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
69Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
70Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
71Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
72OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
73I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 74
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75* MIPS $fp behavior changed
76
77The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
78the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
79context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
80address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
81The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
82
299ffc64 83*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 84
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85* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
86
87When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
88`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
89in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
90library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
91shared libs like mad''.
92
b9d14705 93* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 94
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95Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
96the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
97arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
98powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 99
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100* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
101
102GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
103and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
104they expand.
105
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106The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
107invocations in expression, and shows the result.
108
109The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
110macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
111
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112Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
113information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
114your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
115information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
116
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117* Multi-arched targets.
118
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119DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
120DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 121NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 122National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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123Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
124Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 125
cd9bfe15 126* New targets.
e33ce519 127
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128Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
129
e33ce519 130
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131* New native configurations
132
133Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 134SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 135MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 136UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 137
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138* OBSOLETE configurations and files
139
140Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
141been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
142configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
143permanently REMOVED.
144
92eb23c5 145Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 146OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 147IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 148Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 149Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 150Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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151i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
152i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
153i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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154HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
155 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
156 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 157I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 158
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159* OBSOLETE languages
160
161CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
162
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163* REMOVED configurations and files
164
165AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
166A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
167AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
168AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
169AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
170
171testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
172
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173* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
174
175This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
176commands. The default is 1024.
177
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178* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
179
180Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
181
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182* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
183
184These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
185to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
186from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 187
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188* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
189
190The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
191including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
192of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
193
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194*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
195
196* New targets.
197
198Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
199
200* Bug fixes
201
202gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
203mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
204Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
205
206gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
207dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
208Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
209
210Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
211Surprisingly enough, it works now.
212By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
213
214i386 hardware watchpoint support:
215avoid misses on second run for some targets.
216By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
217
37057839 218*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 219
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220* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
221
222This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
223really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
224In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
225target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
226This can be a significant performance improvement on some
227(notably embedded) targets.
228
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229* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
230
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231This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
232process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
233GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
234hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 235
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236* New command line option
237
238GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
239
240* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
241
242There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
243command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
244a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
245be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
246open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
247issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
248a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
249it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
250GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
251is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
252
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253* Changes in ARM configurations.
254
255Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
256configuration is fully multi-arch.
257
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258* New native configurations
259
fe419ffc 260ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 261x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 262AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 263Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 264
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265* New targets
266
267Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
268
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269* OBSOLETE configurations and files
270
271Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
272been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
273configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
274permanently REMOVED.
275
276AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
277A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
278AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
279AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
280AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
281
b4ceaee6 282testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 283
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284* REMOVED configurations and files
285
286TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 287WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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288PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
289PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
290PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 291Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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292Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
293 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 294SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 295Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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296Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
297ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 298Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 299
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300* Changes to command line processing
301
302The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
303for the inferior from gdb's command line.
304
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305* Changes to key bindings
306
307There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
308
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309*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
310
311Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
312
313Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
314corrupted.
315
316Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
317
318Numerous documentation fixes.
319
320Numerous testsuite fixes.
321
34f47bc4 322*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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323
324* New native configurations
325
326Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
327x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 328MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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329MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
330ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 331s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 332
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333* New targets
334
def90278 335Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 336CRIS cris-axis
55241689 337UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 338
17e78a56 339* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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340
341x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 342Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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343Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
344 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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345TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
346WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 347Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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348PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
349PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
350PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 351SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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352Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
353ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 354Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 355
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356stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
357kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
358
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359Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
360been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
361configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
362permanently REMOVED.
363
a196c81c 364* REMOVED configurations and files
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365
366Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
367Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
368Pyramid pyramid-*-*
369ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
370Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 371ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 372
6d6b80e5 373* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 374
6d6b80e5 375GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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376sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
377present.
378
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379* Other news:
380
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381* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
382
383* The MI enabled by default.
384
385The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
386revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
387engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
388using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
389which is now deprecated.
390
391* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
392
393GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
394main features are supported:
395
396 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
397
398 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
399 extension;
400
401 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
402
403 - a Pascal expression parser.
404
405However, some important features are not yet supported.
406
407 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
408
409 - there are some problems with boolean types;
410
411 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
412 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
413
414 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
415
416 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
417
418* Changes in completion.
419
420Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
421to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
422users expect at the shell prompt.
423
424Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
425`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
426program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
427files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
428be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
429considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
430name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
431
432`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
433
434* New platform-independent commands:
435
436It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
437hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
438documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
439
440* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
441
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442Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
443revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
444many threads as your system allows you to have.
445
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446Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
447
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448Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
449multi-threaded programs though.
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450
451* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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452
453Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
454
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455GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
456debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
457supported.)
458
459* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
460
461Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
462breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
463implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
464put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
465and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
466registers.
467
468The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
469debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
470watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
471
472* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
473
474New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
475the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
476
477New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
478display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
479IDT.
480
481New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
482from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
483New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
484a given linear address.
485
486GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
487program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
488which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
489
490DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
491
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492It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
493
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494* Changes in documentation.
495
496All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
497Documentation License.
498
499Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
500manual.
501
502TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
503
504Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
505manual.
506
507The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
508documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
509hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
510
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511* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
512
513The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
514``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
515contents of this file.
516
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517* gdba.el deleted
518
519GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 520
9debab2f 521*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 522
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523* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
524
525Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
526programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
527displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
528greater level of detail.
529
530* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
531
532It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
533bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
534on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
535written.
536
537* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
538
539The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
540necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
541machines ``out of the box''.
542
543The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
544possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
545signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
546would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
547interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
548
549It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
550standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
551even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
552and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
553terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
554
555The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
556enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
557also works.
558
559DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
560GDB.
561
562It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
563directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
564times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
565breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
566
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567* New native configurations
568
569ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 570PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 571
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572* New targets
573
96baa820 574Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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575x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
576PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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577TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
578
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579* OBSOLETE configurations
580
581Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
582Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 583Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 584ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 585Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 586
9debab2f
AC
587Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
588but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
589these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
590be permanently REMOVED.
591
5330533d
SS
592* Gould support removed
593
594Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
595
bc9e5bbf
AC
596* New features for SVR4
597
598On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
599without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
600load symbols from the running process's executable file.
601
602* Many C++ enhancements
603
604C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
605in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
606
adf40b2e
JM
607* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
608
609A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
610sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
611with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
612``|<program> <args>'' vis:
613
614 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
615 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
616
43e526b9
JM
617* MIPS 64 remote protocol
618
619A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
620expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
621instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
622
623The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
624added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
625
96baa820
JM
626* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
627
628The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
629``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
630include ``set remote P-packet''.
631
11cf8741
JM
632* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
633
634The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
635accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
636``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
637
7876dd43
DB
638* ``apropos'' command added.
639
640The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
641documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
642try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
643
bc9e5bbf
AC
644* New MI interface
645
646A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
647interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
648process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
649"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
650enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
651
652 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
653
c906108c
SS
654*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
655
656* New native configurations
657
658HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
659HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 660M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
661
662* New targets
663
664Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
665Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
666Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
667
668* OBSOLETE configurations
669
670Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
671
672Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
673but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
674these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
675be permanently REMOVED.
676
677* ANSI/ISO C
678
679As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
680buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
681containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
682use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
683available. If this is not true, please report the affected
684configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
685information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
686already.
687
688* Readline 2.2
689
690GDB now uses readline 2.2.
691
692* set extension-language
693
694You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
695languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
696you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
697 set extension-language .c c++
698The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
699and their associated languages.
700
701* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
702
703When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
704you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
705PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
706
707 set processor NAME
708
709sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
710following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
711
712 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
713 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
714 403 IBM PowerPC 403
715 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
716 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
717 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
718 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
719 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
720 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
721 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
722 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
723
724At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
725special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
726registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
727only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
728
729* HP-UX support
730
731Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
732more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
733library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
734support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
735for xdb and dbx commands.
736
737* Catchpoints
738
739HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
740generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
741to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
742
743This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
744argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
745output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
746
747* Debugging across forks
748
749On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
750in the inferior.
751
752* TUI
753
754HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
755it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
756configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
757
758* GDB remote protocol additions
759
760A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
761Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
762fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
763allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
764
765For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
766full 64-bit address. The command
767
768 set remoteaddresssize 32
769
770can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
771the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
772will be discarded.
773
774In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
775command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
776
777 maint packet heythere
778
779sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
780disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
781time.
782
783The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
784target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
785downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
786
787* Tracing can collect general expressions
788
789You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
790further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
791doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
792
793* mask-address variable for Mips
794
795For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
796a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
797of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
798
799* Higher serial baud rates
800
801GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
802230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
803to achieve all of these rates.)
804
805* i960 simulator
806
807The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
808builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
809
810
811*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
812
813* New native configurations
814
815Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
816Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
817Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
818PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
819PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
820Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
821Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
822
823* New targets
824
825Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
826Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
827Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
828Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
829MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
830MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
831MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
832Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
833Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
834Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
835NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
836
837* New debugging protocols
838
839ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
840M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
841DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
842PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
843PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
844Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
845
846* DWARF 2
847
848All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
849format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
850information.
851
852* Java frontend
853
854GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
855only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
856
857* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
858
859For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
860loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
861locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
862
863* Live range splitting
864
865GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
866range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
867more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
868
869* Hurd support
870
871GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
872updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
873
874* ARM Thumb support
875
876GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
877instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
878instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
879accordingly.
880
881* MIPS16 support
882
883GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
884instruction set.
885
886* Overlay support
887
888GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
889linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
890will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
891control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
892additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
893in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
894
895* info symbol
896
897The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
898the symbol at the specified address.
899
900* Trace support
901
902The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
903asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
904extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
905includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
906file tracepoint.c for more details.
907
908* MIPS simulator
909
910Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
911by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
912of most MIPS variants.
913
914* Sparc simulator
915
916Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
917by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
918Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
919
920* set architecture
921
922For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
923basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
924architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
925the possible architectures.
926
927*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
928
929* New native configurations
930
931Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
932M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
933PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
934PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
935PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
936RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
937
938* New targets
939
940ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
941I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
942MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
943MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
944PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
945Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
946Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
947
948* PowerPC simulator
949
950The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
951contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
952PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
953basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
954performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
955
956* Solaris 2.5
957
958GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
959
960* Windows 95/NT native
961
962GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
963To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
964which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
965Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
966ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
967
968* dont-repeat command
969
970If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
971command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
972useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
973extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
974
975* Send break instead of ^C
976
977The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
978rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
979GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
980
981* Remote protocol timeout
982
983The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
984that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
985to read from the target. The default value is 2.
986
987* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
988
989By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
990loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
991stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
992when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
993in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
994
995Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
996/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
997automatically on hpux10.
998
999* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1000
1001Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1002
1003* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1004
1005When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1006may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1007the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1008every character. The default value is 1050.
1009
1010* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1011
1012If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1013a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1014replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1015details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1016remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1017to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1018
1019* Speedups for remote debugging
1020
1021GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1022the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1023and more efficient S-record downloading.
1024
1025* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1026
1027GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1028Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1029
1030*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1031
1032* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1033
1034The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1035can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1036
1037* Remote targets use caching
1038
1039Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1040remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1041it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1042debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1043off' turns the the data cache off.
1044
1045* Remote targets may have threads
1046
1047The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1048in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1049gdb/remote.c for details.
1050
1051* NetROM support
1052
1053If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1054support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1055acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1056write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1057support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1058another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1059sequence is something like
1060
1061 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1062 load <prog>
1063 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1064
1065* Macintosh host
1066
1067GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1068may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1069it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1070available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1071device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1072directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1073scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1074mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1075
1076* Autoconf
1077
1078GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1079but does simplify configuration and building.
1080
1081* hpux10
1082
1083GDB now supports hpux10.
1084
1085*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1086
1087* New native configurations
1088
1089x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1090x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1091NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1092Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1093
1094* New targets
1095
1096A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1097HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1098CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1099PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1100WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1101
1102* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1103
1104GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1105possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1106filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1107the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1108if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1109
1110* Arguments to user-defined commands
1111
1112User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1113Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1114trivial example:
1115define adder
1116 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1117
1118To execute the command use:
1119adder 1 2 3
1120
1121Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1122Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1123use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1124
1125* New `if' and `while' commands
1126
1127This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1128commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1129expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1130execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1131terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1132`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1133if the expression is zero.
1134
1135* Fortran source language mode
1136
1137GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1138Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1139variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1140with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1141Fortran compilers.
1142
1143* Better HPUX support
1144
1145Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1146running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1147processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1148for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1149that behavior do the following before running the program:
1150
1151 adb -w a.out
1152 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1153 control-d
1154
1155This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1156To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1157
1158 adb -w a.out
1159 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1160 control-d
1161
1162You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1163the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1164external linkage.
1165
1166GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1167HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1168
1169* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1170
1171You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1172commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1173current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1174"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1175associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1176configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1177
1178* New DOS host serial code
1179
1180This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1181no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1182a PC's serial port.
1183
1184*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1185
1186* New "complete" command
1187
1188This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1189were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1190
1191* Trailing space optional in prompt
1192
1193"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1194allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1195
1196* Breakpoint hit counts
1197
1198"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1199has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1200can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1201to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1202less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1203that breakpoint.
1204
1205* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1206
1207"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1208an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1209arrays actually contain only short strings.
1210
1211* Shared library breakpoints
1212
1213In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1214breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1215
1216* Hardware watchpoints
1217
1218There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1219targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1220
55241689 1221Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1222
1223* Annotations
1224
1225Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1226and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1227
1228* Improved Irix 5 support
1229
1230GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1231
1232* Improved HPPA support
1233
1234GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1235
1236* New native configurations
1237
1238Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1239HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1240Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1241RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1242
1243* New targets
1244
1245OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1246MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1247Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1248
1249* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1250
1251There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1252This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1253
1254* Fixes
1255
1256As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1257and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1258
1259*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1260
1261* Irix 5 is now supported
1262
1263* HPPA support
1264
1265GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1266to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1267GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1268of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1269can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1270
1271
1272*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1273
1274* User visible changes:
1275
1276* Remote Debugging
1277
1278The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1279target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1280debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1281integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1282debugging info for the mips target).
1283
1284* DEC Alpha native support
1285
1286GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1287debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1288work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1289Alpha-specific notes.
1290
1291* Preliminary thread implementation
1292
1293GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1294
1295* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1296
1297This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1298to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1299for details).
1300
1301* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1302
1303This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1304mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1305call methods, ...etc.
1306
1307*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1308
1309 * User visible changes:
1310
1311Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1312supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1313other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1314somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1315
1316Filename completion now works.
1317
1318When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1319arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1320addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1321
1322All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1323vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1324should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1325your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1326to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1327
1328 * DEC alpha support
1329
1330This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1331cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1332
1333
1334*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1335
1336 * Testsuite
1337
1338This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1339The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1340via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1341
1342 * C++ demangling
1343
1344'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1345emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1346Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1347disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1348use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1349
1350 * Simulators
1351
1352GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1353So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1354Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1355
1356 * New targets supported
1357
1358H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1359H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1360SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1361Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1362IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1363
1364Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1365version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1366GO32 memory extender.
1367
1368 * New remote protocols
1369
1370MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1371
1372 * New source languages supported
1373
1374This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1375used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1376into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1377
1378
1379*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1380
1381 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1382
1383GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1384version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1385University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1386compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1387format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1388(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1389
1390Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1391
1392 * Faster and better demangling
1393
1394We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1395demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1396character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1397only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1398This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1399increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1400symbol lookups.
1401
1402`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1403from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1404compiler does not actually implement.
1405
1406 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1407
1408In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1409inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1410recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1411very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1412The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1413circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1414fix.
1415
1416The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1417release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1418
1419 * Improved configure script
1420
1421The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1422you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1423host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1424done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1425
1426We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1427version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1428`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1429The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1430only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1431We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1432
1433 * Documentation improvements
1434
1435There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1436produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1437before submitting changes.
1438
1439The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1440M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1441`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1442you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1443a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1444
1445*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1446We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1447been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1448or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1449`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1450around this problem.
1451
1452 * New features
1453
1454GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1455the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1456`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1457the target program.
1458
1459The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1460how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1461
1462 * New native hosts supported
1463
1464HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1465386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1466
1467 * New targets supported
1468
1469AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1470
1471 * New file formats supported
1472
1473BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1474HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1475
1476 * Major bug fixes
1477
1478Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1479
1480We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1481printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1482
1483We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1484for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1485release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1486
1487You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1488will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1489
1490We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1491for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1492especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1493libraries.
1494
1495The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1496information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1497command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1498any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1499when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1500
1501 * Internal improvements
1502
1503GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1504debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1505
1506GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1507Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1508symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1509contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1510shared code that handles any of them.
1511
1512 * New command line options
1513
1514We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1515
1516 * Mmalloc licensing
1517
1518The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1519General Public License.
1520
1521*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1522
1523 * Host/native/target split
1524
1525GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1526hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1527target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1528local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1529ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1530
1531The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1532GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1533is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1534code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1535any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1536built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1537handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1538
1539GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1540It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1541plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1542
1543 * New hosts supported
1544
1545HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1546386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1547386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1548
1549 * New targets supported
1550
1551Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
155268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1553
1554 * New native hosts supported
1555
1556386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1557 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1558386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1559
1560 * New file formats supported
1561
1562BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1563supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1564format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1565
1566 * New commands
1567
1568`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1569`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1570These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1571
1572`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1573
1574You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1575scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1576prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1577executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1578
1579 * C++ improvements
1580
1581We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1582info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1583symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1584
1585Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1586
1587 * Major bug fixes
1588
1589The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1590fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1591by the compiler.
1592
1593We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1594support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1595
1596John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1597slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1598that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1599purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1600the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1601mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1602
1603Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1604about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1605completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1606we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1607
1608 * AMD 29k support
1609
1610A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1611specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1612calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1613usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1614in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1615
1616We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1617Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1618of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1619resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1620
1621 * Remote interfaces
1622
1623We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1624with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1625message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1626This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1627needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1628breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1629each instruction being stepped through.
1630
1631The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1632registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1633
1634There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1635find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1636Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1637processor with a serial port.
1638
1639 * Configuration
1640
1641Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1642`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1643supported, and what files each one uses.
1644
1645 * Library changes
1646
1647There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1648disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1649Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1650disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1651
1652The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1653Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1654can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1655grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1656
1657 * Documentation
1658
1659The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1660reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1661as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1662encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1663system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1664bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1665
1666And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1667
1668
1669*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1670
1671 * Better support for C++ function names
1672
1673GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1674names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1675(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1676single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1677Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1678
1679GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1680the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1681You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1682lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1683for the list of formats.
1684
1685 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1686
1687Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1688C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1689directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1690can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1691usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1692about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1693this problem.)
1694
1695 * New 'maintenance' command
1696
1697All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1698the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1699can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1700
1701 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1702 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1703 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1704 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1705 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1706 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1707
1708The following commands are new:
1709
1710 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1711 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1712 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1713
1714 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1715
1716We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1717(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1718be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1719read after argv processing.
1720
1721 * New hosts supported
1722
1723Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1724
55241689 1725GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1726
1727We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1728is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1729for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1730masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1731fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1732It costs extra.
1733
1734 * New targets supported
1735
1736Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1737
1738 * More smarts about finding #include files
1739
1740GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1741all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1742greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1743especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1744the one that contains your sources.
1745
1746We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1747breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1748try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1749
1750 * Interesting infernals change
1751
1752GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1753section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1754target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1755stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1756
1757 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1758
1759There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1760 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1761 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1762
1763See the ChangeLog for details.
1764
1765*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1766
1767 * New machines supported (host and target)
1768
1769IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1770
1771SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1772
1773 * New malloc package
1774
1775GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1776Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1777capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1778This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1779pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1780more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1781
1782 * info proc
1783
1784The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1785'help info proc' for details.
1786
1787 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1788
1789The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1790Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1791possible.
1792
1793 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1794
1795Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1796support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1797conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1798environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1799that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1800in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1801
1802 * Cross byte order fixes
1803
1804Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1805targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1806
1807 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1808
1809If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1810system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1811`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1812program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1813called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1814Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1815and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1816the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1817option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1818starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1819
1820You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1821the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1822information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1823slower, but makes future operations faster.
1824
1825The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1826build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1827A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1828use is:
1829
1830 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1831
1832The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1833It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1834shared across multiple host platforms.
1835
1836 * longjmp() handling
1837
1838GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1839siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1840all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1841platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1842
1843 * Solaris 2.0
1844
1845Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1846this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1847reading symbols.
1848
1849 * Bug fixes
1850
1851As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1852People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1853crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1854
1855*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1856
1857 * New machines supported (host and target)
1858
1859SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1860 (except core files)
1861BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1862Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1863
1864 * New machines supported (target)
1865
1866AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1867
1868 * C++ support
1869
1870GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1871The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1872per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1873
1874GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1875`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1876extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1877good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1878will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1879released.
1880
1881 * New features for SVR4
1882
1883GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1884shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1885only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1886
1887The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1888on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1889it prints the address mappings of the process.
1890
1891If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1892bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1893
1894 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1895
1896Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1897now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1898skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1899make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1900same code linked statically.
1901
1902 * New Getopt
1903
1904GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1905version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1906continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1907Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1908added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1909future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1910
1911 * Bugs fixed
1912
1913The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1914Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1915See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1916
1917
1918*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1919
1920 * New machines supported (host and target)
1921
1922Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1923NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1924Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1925
1926 * Almost SCO Unix support
1927
1928We had hoped to support:
1929SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1930(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1931that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1932about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1933
1934 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1935
1936GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1937debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1938is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1939send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1940reqired (if any).
1941
1942 * New Readline
1943
1944GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1945is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1946required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1947
1948 * Bugs fixed
1949
1950The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1951Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1952See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1953
1954 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1955
1956GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1957supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1958symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1959
1960Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1961mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1962debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1963mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1964version 2.
1965
1966Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1967really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1968line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1969variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1970situation somewhat.
1971
1972When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1973However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1974methods.
1975
1976We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1977DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1978encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1979
1980
1981*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1982
1983 * Improved configuration
1984
1985Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1986Porting BFD is simpler.
1987
1988 * Stepping improved
1989
1990The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1991of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1992in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1993function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1994
1995 * Bug fixing
1996
1997Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1998
1999 * New host supported (not target)
2000
2001Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2002
2003
2004*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2005
2006 * Multiple source language support
2007
2008GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2009It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2010and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2011language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2012You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2013`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2014
2015 * GDB and Modula-2
2016
2017GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2018currently under development at the State University of New York at
2019Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2020continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2021
2022Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2023debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2024symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2025
2026There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2027in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2028
2029 * set write on/off
2030
2031GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2032a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2033the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2034by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2035effect immediately.
2036
2037 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2038
2039When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2040shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2041The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2042examining core files.
2043
2044 * set listsize
2045
2046You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2047The default is 10.
2048
2049 * New machines supported (host and target)
2050
2051SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2052Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2053Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2054
2055 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2056
2057IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2058
2059 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2060
2061AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2062AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2063Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2064
2065 * New remote interfaces
2066
2067AMD 29000 Adapt
2068AMD 29000 Minimon
2069
2070
2071*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2072
2073 * New Facilities
2074
2075Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2076
2077Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2078target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2079is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2080remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2081remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2082also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2083using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2084stub on the target system.
2085
2086New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2087
2088GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2089library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2090object file types such as a.out and coff.
2091
2092There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2093refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2094
2095
2096 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2097
2098All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2099by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2100
2101For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2102``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2103Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2104
2105What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2106print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2107will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2108all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2109
2110confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2111 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2112 it is already running. Default is ON.
2113
2114editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2115 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2116 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2117 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2118 Default is ON.
2119
2120history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2121 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2122 or the value of the environment variable
2123 GDBHISTFILE.
2124
2125history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2126 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2127 HISTSIZE.
2128
2129history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2130 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2131 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2132
2133history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2134 history expansion will be performed on
2135 command line input. The default is OFF.
2136
2137radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2138 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2139 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2140
2141height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2142 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2143 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2144 variable TERM.
2145
2146width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2147 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2148 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2149 variable TERM.
2150
2151Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2152``set width'' instead.
2153
2154print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2155 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2156 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2157 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2158
2159print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2160 is OFF.
2161
2162print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2163 "raw" form if off.
2164
2165print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2166 like instructions.
2167
2168print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2169
2170
2171 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2172
2173The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2174new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2175are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2176window.
2177
2178
2179 * Support for Shared Libraries
2180
2181GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2182Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2183before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2184happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2185At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2186from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2187shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2188It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2189
2190sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2191 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2192 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2193
2194info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2195
2196
2197 * Watchpoints
2198
2199A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2200expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2201tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2202quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2203problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2204more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2205
2206watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2207
2208info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2209
2210delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2211disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2212enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2213
2214
2215 * C++ multiple inheritance
2216
2217When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2218for C++ programs.
2219
2220 * C++ exception handling
2221
2222Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2223ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2224the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2225handler's context).
2226
2227catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2228 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2229 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2230
2231info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2232 current stack frame.
2233
2234
2235 * Minor command changes
2236
2237The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2238command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2239is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2240
2241The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2242at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2243frames without printing.
2244
2245 * New directory command
2246
2247'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2248The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2249about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2250with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2251find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2252
2253 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2254
2255For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2256for more details.
2257
2258GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2259two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2260Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2261where the program that you are debugging will run.
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