* configure.ac: Check for the GNU/Linux ptrace signature.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
75feb17d
DJ
4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
7f6a6314
PM
6* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
7now complete on file names.
8
65d12d83
TT
9* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
10completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
11For instance, consider:
12
13 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
14 # struct example variable;
15 (gdb) p variable.
16
17If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
18completions will be "f1" and "f2".
19
08388c79
DE
20* New remote packets
21
22qSearch:memory:
23 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
24
060871df
PA
25* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
26
27 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
28 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
29 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
30
d14508fe
DE
31* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
32source+assembly.
33
c055b101 34* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 35DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
36
37* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
38and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
39`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 40
31fffb02
CS
41* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
42with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
43
88d8a8e0
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44* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
45
ccd213ac
DJ
46* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
47which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
48
1fddbabb 49* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 50list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 51
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DJ
52* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
53conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
54have also been fixed.
55
ccd213ac
DJ
56* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
57
58 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
59 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
60
7ae0e2a2
UW
61 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
62 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
63 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
64
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DJ
65* New commands
66
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DE
67find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
68 val1 [, val2, ...]
69 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
70
bf250677
DE
71set print symbol-loading
72show print symbol-loading
73 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
74
e0a3ce09 75set debug timestamp
75feb17d
DJ
76show debug timestamp
77 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
78
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DJ
79set exec-wrapper
80show exec-wrapper
81unset exec-wrapper
82 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 83
aad4b048
JB
84set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
85show multiple-symbols
86 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
87 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
88 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
89
74960c60
VP
90set breakpoint always-inserted
91show breakpoint always-inserted
92 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
93 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
94 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
95
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DJ
96set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
97show arm fallback-mode
98set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
99show arm force-mode
100 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
101 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
102 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
103 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
104
10568435
JK
105set disable-randomization
106show disable-randomization
107 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
108 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
109 multiple debugging sessions.
110
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PA
111* New targets
112
113x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
114
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115macro define
116macro list
117macro undef
118 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
119 interactively.
120
75feb17d 121*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 122
af5ca30d
NH
123* New native configurations
124
125NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 126Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
127
128* New targets
129
130NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 131Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 132
7a404eba
PA
133* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
134
135 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
136 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
137 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
138 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
139
430ebac9
PA
140* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
141(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
142
fe6fbf8b 143* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 144is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
145
146* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
147including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
148and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 149
10665d76
JB
150* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
151accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
152more than one contiguous range of addresses.
153
7cc46491
DJ
154* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
155
d71340b8
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156* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
157registers on PowerPC targets.
158
523c4513
DJ
159* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
160targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
161
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DJ
162* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
163commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
164
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165* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
166extended-remote mode.
167
24a836bd 168* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
169The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
170error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
171The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 172
d0c678e6
UW
173* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
174building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
175target architectures.
176
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TJB
177* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
178Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
179now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
180stored in two consecutive float registers.
181
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VP
182* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
183breakpoints now.
184
b93b6ca7 185* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
186Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
187include:
b93b6ca7
JB
188 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
189 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
190 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
191 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
192 of an assignment
193 - Improved command completion in Ada
194 - Several bug fixes
195
d001be7a
DJ
196* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
197process.
198
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DJ
199* New commands
200
6d53d0af
JB
201set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
202show print frame-arguments
203 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
204 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
205
a6b151f1
DJ
206remote put
207remote get
208remote delete
209 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
210
211* New MI commands
212
213-target-file-put
214-target-file-get
215-target-file-delete
216 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
217
218* New remote packets
219
220vFile:open:
221vFile:close:
222vFile:pread:
223vFile:pwrite:
224vFile:unlink:
225 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 226
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DJ
227vAttach
228 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
229 mode.
230
231vRun
232 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
233
8d5f9c6f 234*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 235
19d378fc
MS
236* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
237bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
238Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
239
3a40aaa0
UW
240* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
241symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
242-Bsymbolic linker option.
243
a6ec25f2
BW
244* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
245recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
246is not supported.
247
6dd09645
JB
248* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
249frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
250
c9bb8148
DJ
251* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
25232-bit or 64-bit register values.
253
0d5de010
DJ
254* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
255
23181151
DJ
256* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
257target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
258a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
259
ea37ba09
DJ
260* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
261automatically displayed as character or string data.
262
263* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
264arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
265as strings.
e1f48ead 266
123dc839
DJ
267* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
268for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 269only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 270
05a4558a
DJ
271* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
272iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 273
7c963485
PA
274* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
275ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
276has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
277
b18be20d
DJ
278* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
279
0ca420ce
UW
280* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
281
31d99776
DJ
282* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
283layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
284segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
285
a4642986
MR
286* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
287immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
288
cfa9d6d9
DJ
289* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
290"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
291packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
292where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
293Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
294
295* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
296(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
297
298* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
299according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 300
c9bb8148
DJ
301* New commands
302
23776285
MR
303set remoteflow
304show remoteflow
305 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
306 when debugging using remote targets.
307
c9bb8148
DJ
308set mem inaccessible-by-default
309show mem inaccessible-by-default
310 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
311 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
312 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
313 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
314 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
315
316set breakpoint auto-hw
317show breakpoint auto-hw
318 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
319 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
320 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
321 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
322 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
323 including "next" and "finish".
324
0e420bd8
JB
325catch exception
326catch exception unhandled
327 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
328
329catch assert
330 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
331
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DJ
332set sysroot
333show sysroot
334 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
335 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
336 an alias to "set sysroot".
337
83cc5c53
UW
338info spu
339 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
340 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
341 architecture.
342
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MK
343* New native configurations
344
345OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
346
23181151
DJ
347set tdesc filename
348unset tdesc filename
349show tdesc filename
350 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
351 not query the target for its built-in description.
352
c9bb8148
DJ
353* New targets
354
54fe9172 355OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 356MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 357Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 358
6dd09645
JB
359* New remote packets
360
361QPassSignals:
362 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
363 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
364
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DJ
365qXfer:features:read:
366 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
367 features.
6dd09645 368
83cc5c53
UW
369qXfer:spu:read:
370qXfer:spu:write:
371 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
372 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
373
cfa9d6d9
DJ
374qXfer:libraries:read:
375 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
376 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
377 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
378 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
379
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DJ
380* Removed targets
381
382Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
383
d08950c4
UW
384alpha*-*-osf1*
385alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 386d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
387hppa*-*-hiux*
388i[34567]86-ncr-*
389i[34567]86-*-dgux*
390i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
391i[34567]86-*-netware*
392i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
393i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
394i[34567]86-*-sco*
395i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
396i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
397i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
398i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
399i[34567]86-*-unixware*
400i[34567]86-*-sysv*
401i[34567]86-*-isc*
402m68*-cisco*-*
403m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 404mips*-*-pe
483367ee 405rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 406sh*-*-pe
483367ee 407
7ce59000
DJ
408* Other removed features
409
410target abug
411target cpu32bug
412target est
413target rom68k
414
415 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
416
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DJ
417target hms
418target e7000
419target sh3
420target sh3e
421
422 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
423 H8/300.
424
425target ocd
426
427 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
428 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
429 interfaces.
430
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DJ
431DWARF 1 support
432
433 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
434 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
435
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DJ
436Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
437
438 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
439 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
440 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
441 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
442
ea35711c
DJ
443MIPS ".pdr" sections
444
445 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
446 in debugging information.
447
448Scheme support
449
450 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
451 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
452
1a69e1e4
DJ
453set mips stack-arg-size
454set mips saved-gpreg-size
455
456 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
457
6dd09645 458*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 459
ca3bf3bd
DJ
460* New targets
461
462Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 463Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 464
6aec2e11
DJ
465* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
466(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
467running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
468
469* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
470Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
471supported.
472
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DJ
473* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
474broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
475
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DJ
476* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
477stub provides the required support.
478
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DJ
479* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
480longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
481
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JB
482* New commands
483
484set substitute-path
485unset substitute-path
486show substitute-path
487 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
488 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
489 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
490 between compilation and debugging.
491
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AS
492set trace-commands
493show trace-commands
494 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
495 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
496 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
497
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DJ
498* REMOVED features
499
500The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
501
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DJ
502Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
503an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
504
3d00d119
DJ
505The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
506
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507* New remote packets
508
509qSupported:
510 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
511 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
512 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
513 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
514 target.
515
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516qXfer:auxv:read:
517 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
518 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
519
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520qXfer:memory-map:read:
521 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
522 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
523
524vFlashErase:
525vFlashWrite:
526vFlashDone:
527 Erase and program a flash memory device.
528
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DJ
529* Removed remote packets
530
531qPart:auxv:read:
532 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
533 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
534
e374b601 535*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 536
96309189
MS
537* New targets
538
539Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
540
541Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
542
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AS
543* New commands
544
545init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
546 only if it doesn't already have a value.
547
ac264b3b
MS
548The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
549
550checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
551
552restart <n> Return the program state to a
553 previously saved state.
554
555info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
556
557delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
558
559set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
560 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
561
562info forks List forks of the user program that
563 are available to be debugged.
564
565fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
566 forks of the user program that are
567 available to be debugged.
568
569delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
570 that are available to be debugged (and
571 kill the forked process).
572
573detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
574 that are available to be debugged (and
575 allow the process to continue).
576
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NS
577* New architecture
578
579Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
580
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DJ
581* Improved Windows host support
582
583GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
584native console support, and remote communications using either
585network sockets or serial ports.
586
f79daebb
GM
587* Improved Modula-2 language support
588
589GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
590basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
591pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
592printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
593written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
594GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
595
acab6ab2
MM
596* REMOVED features
597
598The ARM rdi-share module.
599
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DJ
600The Netware NLM debug server.
601
53e5f3cf 602*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 603
e0ecbda1
MK
604* New native configurations
605
02a677ac 606OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
607OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
608
d64a6579
KB
609* New targets
610
611Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
612
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AS
613* New command line options
614
615--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
616--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
617 the child (debugged) program exited with.
618--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
619 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
620 specified multiple times and in conjunction
621 with the --command (-x) option.
622
11dced61
AC
623* Deprecated commands removed
624
625The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
626removed:
627
628 Command Replacement
629 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
630 othernames set arm disassembler
631 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
632 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
633 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
634 regs info registers
635
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MK
636* New BSD user-level threads support
637
638It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
639library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
640configurations are:
641
642FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
643FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
644OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
645
646Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
647are not yet supported.
648
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MS
649* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
650(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
651
e84ecc99
AC
652* REMOVED configurations and files
653
654VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 655Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 656National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 657
31e35378
JB
658* New "set print array-indexes" command
659
660After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
661when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
662behavior.
663
e85e5c83
MK
664* VAX floating point support
665
666GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
667
d91e9901
AS
668* User-defined command support
669
670In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
671to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
672section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
673
f2cb65ca
MC
674*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
675
f47b1503
AS
676* New command line option
677
678GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
679debugging.
680
f2cb65ca
MC
681* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
682
683GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
684information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
685by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
686proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
687to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 688
d08c0230
AC
689* Internationalization
690
691When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
692internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
693continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
694
117ea3cf
PH
695* Ada
696
697Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
698implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
699into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
700
d08c0230
AC
701* New native configurations
702
703GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
704
705* Remote 'p' packet
706
707GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
708packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
709
710* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
711
712GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
713The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
714features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
715i386 application).
716
717GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
718compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
719continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
720configurations:
721
722hppa-*-hpux
723ia64-*-aix
724mips-*-irix*
725*-*-lynx
726mips-*-linux-gnu
727sds protocol
728xdr protocol
729powerpc bdm protocol
730
731Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
732made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
733
734* OBSOLETE configurations and files
735
736Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
737been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
738configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
739permanently REMOVED.
740
741h8300-*-*
742mcore-*-*
743mn10300-*-*
744ns32k-*-*
745sh64-*-*
746v850-*-*
747
ebb7c577
AC
748*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
749
750* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
751
752When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
753heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
754been fixed.
755
756* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
757
758When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
759fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
760IRIX long double values).
761
762* VAX and "next"
763
764A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
765command. This problem has been fixed.
766
860660cb 767*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 768
0dea2468
AC
769* Fix for ``many threads''
770
771On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
772rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
773error message:
774
775 ptrace: No such process.
776 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
777
778This problem has been fixed.
779
2c07db7a
AC
780* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
781
782Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
783GDB to dump core).
784
c23968a2
JB
785* New ``start'' command.
786
787This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
788
71009278
MK
789* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
790
791Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
792live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
793platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
794
795FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
796FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
797NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
798NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
799NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
800OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
801OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
802OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
803OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
804
3c0b7db2
AC
805* Signal trampoline code overhauled
806
807Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
808These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
809of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
810call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
811signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
812
73cc75f3
AC
813Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
814features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
815include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 816
7243600a
BF
817* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
818
6f606e1c
MK
819* New native configurations
820
97dc871c 821GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 822OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
823OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
824OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 825OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 826NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 827OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 828
a1b461bf
AC
829* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
830
831GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
832The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
833including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
834migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
835compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
836work, was also included.
837
838GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
839module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
840
841h8300-*-*
842mcore-*-*
843mn10300-*-*
844ns32k-*-*
845sh64-*-*
846v850-*-*
847xstormy16-*-*
848
849Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
850made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
851
3c7012f5
AC
852* REMOVED configurations and files
853
854Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
855Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
856Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
857Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
858Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
859AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
860Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
861decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
862riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
863sonymips mips-sony-*
864sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
865
e5fe55f7
AC
866*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
867
868* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
869
870The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
871GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
872command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
873program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
874with GDB".
875
876* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
877
878Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
879libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
880cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
881GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
882shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
883the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
884are created.
885
886Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
887
888* Fixed ISO-C build problems
889
890The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
891non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
892compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
893
894* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
895
896Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
897wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
898
899* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
900
901The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
902permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
903systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
904
905* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
906
907Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
908has been updated to use constant array sizes.
909
910* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
911
912GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
913its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
914panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
915
916* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
917
918When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
919by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
920not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
921
faae5abe 922*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 923
9175c9a3
MC
924* Removed --with-mmalloc
925
926Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
927conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
928
3cc87ec0
MK
929* Changes in AMD64 configurations
930
931The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
932the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
933and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
934you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
935
f0424ef6
MK
936* Revised SPARC target
937
938The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
939FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
940support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
941from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
942(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 943
59659be2
ILT
944* New C++ demangler
945
946GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
947names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
948with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
949programs.
950
9e08b29b
DJ
951* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
952
953GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
954arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
955encountered these.
956
8dfe8985
DC
957* C++ nested types and namespaces
958
959GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
960improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
961is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
962Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
963namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
964"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
965frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
966if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
967GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
968
cced5e27
MK
969* New native configurations
970
971NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 972OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 973OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
974OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
975OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 976
b4b4b794
KI
977* New debugging protocols
978
979M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
980
7989c619
AC
981* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
982
983The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
984and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
985tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
986
5994185b
AC
987* OBSOLETE configurations and files
988
989Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
990been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
991configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
992permanently REMOVED.
993
994Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
995Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
996Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
997Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
998Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
999AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1000Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1001decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1002riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1003sonymips mips-sony-*
1004sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1005
0ddabb4c
AC
1006* REMOVED configurations and files
1007
1008SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1009SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1010Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1011Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1012H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1013HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1014HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1015HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1016PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1017386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1018Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1019 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1020 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1021SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1022SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1023Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1024Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1025
c7f1390e
DJ
1026*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1027
1fe43d45
AC
1028* Objective-C
1029
1030Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1031integrated into GDB.
1032
e6beb428
AC
1033* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1034
1035DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1036information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1037By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1038backtraces.
1039
1040The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1041have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1042DWARF 2 CFI support.
1043
1044* Hosted file I/O.
1045
1046GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1047file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1048remote protocol documentation for details.
1049
1050* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1051
1052All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1053architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1054to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1055ppc32 on ppc64).
1056
1057* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1058
1059GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1060per-thread variables.
1061
1062* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1063
1064GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1065GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1066
1067* Separate debug info.
1068
1069GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1070automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1071of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1072system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1073and optional debug files.
1074
1075* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1076
1077DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1078describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1079debugger.
1080
1081GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1082for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1083
1084* Java
1085
1086A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1087Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1088considered "useable".
1089
85f8f974
DJ
1090* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1091
1092The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1093commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1094kernel.
1095
0fac0b41
DJ
1096* GDB supports logging output to a file
1097
1098There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1099used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1100
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1101* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1102
1103The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1104disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1105command.
1106
e286caf2 1107* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1108
1109The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1110registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1111
d28f9cdf
DJ
1112* Profiling support
1113
1114A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1115be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1116session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1117"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1118data, for more informative profiling results.
1119
da0f9dcd
AC
1120* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1121
1122The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1123option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1124"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1125
1126Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1127removed.
1128
fb9b6b35
JJ
1129Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1130Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1131Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1132 in a subsequent -var-update.
1133
954a4db8
MK
1134* New native configurations.
1135
1136FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1137
6760f9e6
JB
1138* Multi-arched targets.
1139
b4263afa 1140HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1141Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1142
1b831c93
AC
1143* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1144
1145Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1146been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1147configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1148permanently REMOVED.
1149
8b0e5691 1150Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1151Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1152H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1153HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1154HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1155HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1156PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1157Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1158 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1159 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1160Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1161Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1162
5835abe7
NC
1163* REMOVED configurations and files
1164
1165V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1166Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1167IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1168i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1169i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1170i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1171HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1172 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1173 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1174Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1175Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1176Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1177OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1178I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1179
a094c6fb
AC
1180* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1181
1182The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1183the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1184context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1185address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1186The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1187
299ffc64 1188*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1189
46248966
AC
1190* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1191
1192When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1193`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1194in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1195library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1196shared libs like mad''.
1197
b9d14705 1198* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1199
b9d14705
DJ
1200Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1201the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1202arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1203powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1204
e0e9281e
JB
1205* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1206
1207GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1208and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1209they expand.
1210
dd73b9bb
AC
1211The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1212invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1213
1214The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1215macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1216
e0e9281e
JB
1217Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1218information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1219your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1220information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1221
2250ee0c
CV
1222* Multi-arched targets.
1223
6e3ba3b8
JT
1224DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1225DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1226NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1227National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1228Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1229Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1230
cd9bfe15 1231* New targets.
e33ce519 1232
456f8b9d
DB
1233Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1234
e33ce519 1235
da8ca43d
JT
1236* New native configurations
1237
1238Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1239SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1240MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1241UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1242
cd9bfe15
AC
1243* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1244
1245Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1246been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1247configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1248permanently REMOVED.
1249
92eb23c5 1250Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1251OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1252IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1253Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1254Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1255Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1256i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1257i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1258i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1259HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1260 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1261 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1262I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1263
db034ac5
AC
1264* OBSOLETE languages
1265
1266CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1267
cd9bfe15
AC
1268* REMOVED configurations and files
1269
1270AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1271A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1272AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1273AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1274AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1275
1276testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1277
20f01a46
DH
1278* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1279
1280This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1281commands. The default is 1024.
1282
a5941fbf
MK
1283* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1284
1285Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1286
89743e04
MS
1287* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1288
1289These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1290to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1291from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1292
9fb14e79
JB
1293* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1294
1295The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1296including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1297of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1298
2037aebb
AC
1299*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1300
1301* New targets.
1302
1303Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1304
1305* Bug fixes
1306
1307gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1308mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1309Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1310
1311gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1312dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1313Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1314
1315Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1316Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1317By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1318
1319i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1320avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1321By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1322
37057839 1323*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1324
1a703748
MS
1325* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1326
1327This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1328really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1329In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1330target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1331This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1332(notably embedded) targets.
1333
cefd4ef5
MS
1334* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1335
55241689
AC
1336This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1337process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1338GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1339hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1340
352ed7b4
MS
1341* New command line option
1342
1343GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1344
1345* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1346
1347There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1348command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1349a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1350be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1351open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1352issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1353a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1354it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1355GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1356is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1357
fe419ffc
RE
1358* Changes in ARM configurations.
1359
1360Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1361configuration is fully multi-arch.
1362
eb7cedd9
MK
1363* New native configurations
1364
fe419ffc 1365ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1366x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1367AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1368Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1369
c9f63e6b
CV
1370* New targets
1371
1372Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1373
9b4ff276
AC
1374* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1375
1376Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1377been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1378configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1379permanently REMOVED.
1380
1381AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1382A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1383AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1384AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1385AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1386
b4ceaee6 1387testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1388
e2caac18
AC
1389* REMOVED configurations and files
1390
1391TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1392WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1393PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1394PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1395PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1396Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1397Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1398 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1399SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1400Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1401Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1402ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1403Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1404
c2a727fa
TT
1405* Changes to command line processing
1406
1407The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1408for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1409
467d8519
TT
1410* Changes to key bindings
1411
1412There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1413
7072a954
AC
1414*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1415
1416Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1417
1418Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1419corrupted.
1420
1421Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1422
1423Numerous documentation fixes.
1424
1425Numerous testsuite fixes.
1426
34f47bc4 1427*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1428
1429* New native configurations
1430
1431Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1432x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1433MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1434MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1435ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1436s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1437
bf64bfd6
AC
1438* New targets
1439
def90278 1440Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1441CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1442UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1443
17e78a56 1444* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1445
1446x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1447Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1448Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1449 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1450TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1451WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1452Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1453PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1454PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1455PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1456SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1457Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1458ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1459Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1460
17e78a56
AC
1461stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1462kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1463
7fcca85b
AC
1464Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1465been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1466configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1467permanently REMOVED.
1468
a196c81c 1469* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1470
1471Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1472Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1473Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1474ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1475Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1476ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1477
6d6b80e5 1478* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1479
6d6b80e5 1480GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1481sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1482present.
1483
bf64bfd6
AC
1484* Other news:
1485
e23194cb
EZ
1486* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1487
1488* The MI enabled by default.
1489
1490The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1491revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1492engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1493using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1494which is now deprecated.
1495
1496* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1497
1498GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1499main features are supported:
1500
1501 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1502
1503 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1504 extension;
1505
1506 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1507
1508 - a Pascal expression parser.
1509
1510However, some important features are not yet supported.
1511
1512 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1513
1514 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1515
1516 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1517 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1518
1519 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1520
1521 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1522
1523* Changes in completion.
1524
1525Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1526to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1527users expect at the shell prompt.
1528
1529Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1530`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1531program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1532files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1533be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1534considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1535name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1536
1537`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1538
1539* New platform-independent commands:
1540
1541It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1542hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1543documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1544
1545* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1546
d7275149
MK
1547Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1548revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1549many threads as your system allows you to have.
1550
e23194cb
EZ
1551Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1552
d7275149
MK
1553Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1554multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1555
1556* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1557
1558Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1559
e23194cb
EZ
1560GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1561debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1562supported.)
1563
1564* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1565
1566Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1567breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1568implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1569put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1570and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1571registers.
1572
1573The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1574debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1575watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1576
1577* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1578
1579New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1580the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1581
1582New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1583display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1584IDT.
1585
1586New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1587from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1588New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1589a given linear address.
1590
1591GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1592program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1593which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1594
1595DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1596
6c56c069
EZ
1597It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1598
e23194cb
EZ
1599* Changes in documentation.
1600
1601All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1602Documentation License.
1603
1604Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1605manual.
1606
1607TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1608
1609Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1610manual.
1611
1612The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1613documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1614hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1615
5d6640b1
AC
1616* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1617
1618The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1619``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1620contents of this file.
1621
1a1d8446
AC
1622* gdba.el deleted
1623
1624GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1625
9debab2f 1626*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1627
c63ce875
EZ
1628* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1629
1630Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1631programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1632displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1633greater level of detail.
1634
1635* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1636
1637It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1638bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1639on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1640written.
1641
1642* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1643
1644The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1645necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1646machines ``out of the box''.
1647
1648The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1649possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1650signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1651would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1652interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1653
1654It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1655standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1656even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1657and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1658terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1659
1660The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1661enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1662also works.
1663
1664DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1665GDB.
1666
1667It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1668directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1669times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1670breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1671
ed9a39eb
JM
1672* New native configurations
1673
1674ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1675PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1676
7a292a7a
SS
1677* New targets
1678
96baa820 1679Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1680x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1681PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1682TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1683
085dd6e6
JM
1684* OBSOLETE configurations
1685
1686Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1687Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1688Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1689ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1690Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1691
9debab2f
AC
1692Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1693but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1694these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1695be permanently REMOVED.
1696
5330533d
SS
1697* Gould support removed
1698
1699Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1700
bc9e5bbf
AC
1701* New features for SVR4
1702
1703On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1704without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1705load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1706
1707* Many C++ enhancements
1708
1709C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1710in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1711
adf40b2e
JM
1712* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1713
1714A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1715sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1716with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1717``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1718
1719 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1720 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1721
43e526b9
JM
1722* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1723
1724A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1725expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1726instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1727
1728The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1729added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1730
96baa820
JM
1731* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1732
1733The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1734``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1735include ``set remote P-packet''.
1736
11cf8741
JM
1737* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1738
1739The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1740accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1741``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1742
7876dd43
DB
1743* ``apropos'' command added.
1744
1745The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1746documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1747try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1748
bc9e5bbf
AC
1749* New MI interface
1750
1751A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1752interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1753process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1754"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1755enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1756
1757 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1758
c906108c
SS
1759*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1760
1761* New native configurations
1762
1763HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1764HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1765M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1766
1767* New targets
1768
1769Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1770Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1771Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1772
1773* OBSOLETE configurations
1774
1775Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1776
1777Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1778but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1779these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1780be permanently REMOVED.
1781
1782* ANSI/ISO C
1783
1784As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1785buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1786containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1787use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1788available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1789configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1790information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1791already.
1792
1793* Readline 2.2
1794
1795GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1796
1797* set extension-language
1798
1799You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1800languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1801you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1802 set extension-language .c c++
1803The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1804and their associated languages.
1805
1806* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1807
1808When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1809you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1810PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1811
1812 set processor NAME
1813
1814sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1815following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1816
1817 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1818 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1819 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1820 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1821 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1822 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1823 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1824 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1825 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1826 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1827 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1828
1829At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1830special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1831registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1832only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1833
1834* HP-UX support
1835
1836Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1837more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1838library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1839support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1840for xdb and dbx commands.
1841
1842* Catchpoints
1843
1844HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1845generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1846to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1847
1848This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1849argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1850output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1851
1852* Debugging across forks
1853
1854On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1855in the inferior.
1856
1857* TUI
1858
1859HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1860it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1861configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1862
1863* GDB remote protocol additions
1864
1865A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1866Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1867fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1868allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1869
1870For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1871full 64-bit address. The command
1872
1873 set remoteaddresssize 32
1874
1875can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1876the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1877will be discarded.
1878
1879In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1880command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1881
1882 maint packet heythere
1883
1884sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1885disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1886time.
1887
1888The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1889target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1890downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1891
1892* Tracing can collect general expressions
1893
1894You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1895further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1896doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1897
1898* mask-address variable for Mips
1899
1900For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1901a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1902of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1903
1904* Higher serial baud rates
1905
1906GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1907230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1908to achieve all of these rates.)
1909
1910* i960 simulator
1911
1912The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1913builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1914
1915
1916*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1917
1918* New native configurations
1919
1920Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1921Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1922Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1923PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1924PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1925Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1926Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1927
1928* New targets
1929
1930Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1931Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1932Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1933Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1934MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1935MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1936MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1937Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1938Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1939Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1940NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1941
1942* New debugging protocols
1943
1944ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1945M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1946DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1947PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1948PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1949Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1950
1951* DWARF 2
1952
1953All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1954format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1955information.
1956
1957* Java frontend
1958
1959GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1960only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1961
1962* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1963
1964For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1965loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1966locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1967
1968* Live range splitting
1969
1970GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1971range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1972more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1973
1974* Hurd support
1975
1976GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1977updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1978
1979* ARM Thumb support
1980
1981GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1982instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1983instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1984accordingly.
1985
1986* MIPS16 support
1987
1988GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1989instruction set.
1990
1991* Overlay support
1992
1993GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1994linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1995will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1996control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1997additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1998in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1999
2000* info symbol
2001
2002The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2003the symbol at the specified address.
2004
2005* Trace support
2006
2007The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2008asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2009extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2010includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2011file tracepoint.c for more details.
2012
2013* MIPS simulator
2014
2015Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2016by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2017of most MIPS variants.
2018
2019* Sparc simulator
2020
2021Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2022by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2023Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2024
2025* set architecture
2026
2027For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2028basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2029architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2030the possible architectures.
2031
2032*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2033
2034* New native configurations
2035
2036Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2037M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2038PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2039PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2040PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2041RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2042
2043* New targets
2044
2045ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2046I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2047MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2048MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2049PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2050Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2051Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2052
2053* PowerPC simulator
2054
2055The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2056contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2057PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2058basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2059performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2060
2061* Solaris 2.5
2062
2063GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2064
2065* Windows 95/NT native
2066
2067GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2068To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2069which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2070Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2071ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2072
2073* dont-repeat command
2074
2075If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2076command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2077useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2078extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2079
2080* Send break instead of ^C
2081
2082The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2083rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2084GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2085
2086* Remote protocol timeout
2087
2088The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2089that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2090to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2091
2092* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2093
2094By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2095loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2096stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2097when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2098in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2099
2100Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2101/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2102automatically on hpux10.
2103
2104* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2105
2106Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2107
2108* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2109
2110When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2111may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2112the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2113every character. The default value is 1050.
2114
2115* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2116
2117If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2118a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2119replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2120details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2121remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2122to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2123
2124* Speedups for remote debugging
2125
2126GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2127the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2128and more efficient S-record downloading.
2129
2130* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2131
2132GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2133Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2134
2135*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2136
2137* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2138
2139The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2140can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2141
2142* Remote targets use caching
2143
2144Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2145remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2146it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2147debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2148off' turns the the data cache off.
2149
2150* Remote targets may have threads
2151
2152The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2153in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2154gdb/remote.c for details.
2155
2156* NetROM support
2157
2158If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2159support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2160acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2161write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2162support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2163another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2164sequence is something like
2165
2166 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2167 load <prog>
2168 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2169
2170* Macintosh host
2171
2172GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2173may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2174it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2175available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2176device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2177directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2178scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2179mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2180
2181* Autoconf
2182
2183GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2184but does simplify configuration and building.
2185
2186* hpux10
2187
2188GDB now supports hpux10.
2189
2190*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2191
2192* New native configurations
2193
2194x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2195x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2196NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2197Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2198
2199* New targets
2200
2201A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2202HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2203CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2204PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2205WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2206
2207* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2208
2209GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2210possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2211filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2212the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2213if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2214
2215* Arguments to user-defined commands
2216
2217User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2218Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2219trivial example:
2220define adder
2221 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2222
2223To execute the command use:
2224adder 1 2 3
2225
2226Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2227Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2228use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2229
2230* New `if' and `while' commands
2231
2232This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2233commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2234expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2235execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2236terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2237`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2238if the expression is zero.
2239
2240* Fortran source language mode
2241
2242GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2243Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2244variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2245with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2246Fortran compilers.
2247
2248* Better HPUX support
2249
2250Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2251running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2252processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2253for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2254that behavior do the following before running the program:
2255
2256 adb -w a.out
2257 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2258 control-d
2259
2260This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2261To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2262
2263 adb -w a.out
2264 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2265 control-d
2266
2267You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2268the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2269external linkage.
2270
2271GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2272HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2273
2274* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2275
2276You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2277commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2278current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2279"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2280associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2281configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2282
2283* New DOS host serial code
2284
2285This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2286no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2287a PC's serial port.
2288
2289*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2290
2291* New "complete" command
2292
2293This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2294were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2295
2296* Trailing space optional in prompt
2297
2298"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2299allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2300
2301* Breakpoint hit counts
2302
2303"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2304has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2305can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2306to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2307less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2308that breakpoint.
2309
2310* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2311
2312"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2313an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2314arrays actually contain only short strings.
2315
2316* Shared library breakpoints
2317
2318In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2319breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2320
2321* Hardware watchpoints
2322
2323There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2324targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2325
55241689 2326Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2327
2328* Annotations
2329
2330Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2331and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2332
2333* Improved Irix 5 support
2334
2335GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2336
2337* Improved HPPA support
2338
2339GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2340
2341* New native configurations
2342
2343Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2344HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2345Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2346RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2347
2348* New targets
2349
2350OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2351MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2352Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2353
2354* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2355
2356There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2357This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2358
2359* Fixes
2360
2361As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2362and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2363
2364*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2365
2366* Irix 5 is now supported
2367
2368* HPPA support
2369
2370GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2371to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2372GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2373of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2374can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2375
2376
2377*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2378
2379* User visible changes:
2380
2381* Remote Debugging
2382
2383The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2384target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2385debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2386integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2387debugging info for the mips target).
2388
2389* DEC Alpha native support
2390
2391GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2392debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2393work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2394Alpha-specific notes.
2395
2396* Preliminary thread implementation
2397
2398GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2399
2400* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2401
2402This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2403to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2404for details).
2405
2406* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2407
2408This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2409mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2410call methods, ...etc.
2411
2412*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2413
2414 * User visible changes:
2415
2416Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2417supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2418other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2419somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2420
2421Filename completion now works.
2422
2423When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2424arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2425addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2426
2427All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2428vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2429should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2430your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2431to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2432
2433 * DEC alpha support
2434
2435This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2436cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2437
2438
2439*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2440
2441 * Testsuite
2442
2443This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2444The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2445via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2446
2447 * C++ demangling
2448
2449'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2450emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2451Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2452disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2453use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2454
2455 * Simulators
2456
2457GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2458So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2459Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2460
2461 * New targets supported
2462
2463H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2464H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2465SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2466Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2467IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2468
2469Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2470version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2471GO32 memory extender.
2472
2473 * New remote protocols
2474
2475MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2476
2477 * New source languages supported
2478
2479This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2480used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2481into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2482
2483
2484*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2485
2486 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2487
2488GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2489version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2490University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2491compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2492format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2493(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2494
2495Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2496
2497 * Faster and better demangling
2498
2499We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2500demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2501character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2502only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2503This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2504increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2505symbol lookups.
2506
2507`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2508from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2509compiler does not actually implement.
2510
2511 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2512
2513In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2514inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2515recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2516very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2517The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2518circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2519fix.
2520
2521The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2522release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2523
2524 * Improved configure script
2525
2526The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2527you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2528host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2529done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2530
2531We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2532version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2533`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2534The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2535only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2536We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2537
2538 * Documentation improvements
2539
2540There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2541produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2542before submitting changes.
2543
2544The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2545M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2546`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2547you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2548a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2549
2550*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2551We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2552been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2553or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2554`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2555around this problem.
2556
2557 * New features
2558
2559GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2560the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2561`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2562the target program.
2563
2564The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2565how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2566
2567 * New native hosts supported
2568
2569HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2570386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2571
2572 * New targets supported
2573
2574AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2575
2576 * New file formats supported
2577
2578BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2579HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2580
2581 * Major bug fixes
2582
2583Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2584
2585We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2586printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2587
2588We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2589for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2590release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2591
2592You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2593will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2594
2595We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2596for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2597especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2598libraries.
2599
2600The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2601information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2602command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2603any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2604when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2605
2606 * Internal improvements
2607
2608GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2609debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2610
2611GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2612Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2613symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2614contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2615shared code that handles any of them.
2616
2617 * New command line options
2618
2619We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2620
2621 * Mmalloc licensing
2622
2623The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2624General Public License.
2625
2626*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2627
2628 * Host/native/target split
2629
2630GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2631hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2632target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2633local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2634ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2635
2636The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2637GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2638is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2639code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2640any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2641built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2642handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2643
2644GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2645It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2646plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2647
2648 * New hosts supported
2649
2650HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2651386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2652386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2653
2654 * New targets supported
2655
2656Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
265768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2658
2659 * New native hosts supported
2660
2661386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2662 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2663386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2664
2665 * New file formats supported
2666
2667BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2668supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2669format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2670
2671 * New commands
2672
2673`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2674`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2675These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2676
2677`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2678
2679You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2680scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2681prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2682executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2683
2684 * C++ improvements
2685
2686We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2687info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2688symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2689
2690Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2691
2692 * Major bug fixes
2693
2694The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2695fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2696by the compiler.
2697
2698We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2699support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2700
2701John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2702slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2703that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2704purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2705the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2706mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2707
2708Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2709about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2710completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2711we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2712
2713 * AMD 29k support
2714
2715A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2716specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2717calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2718usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2719in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2720
2721We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2722Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2723of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2724resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2725
2726 * Remote interfaces
2727
2728We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2729with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2730message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2731This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2732needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2733breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2734each instruction being stepped through.
2735
2736The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2737registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2738
2739There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2740find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2741Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2742processor with a serial port.
2743
2744 * Configuration
2745
2746Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2747`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2748supported, and what files each one uses.
2749
2750 * Library changes
2751
2752There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2753disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2754Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2755disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2756
2757The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2758Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2759can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2760grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2761
2762 * Documentation
2763
2764The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2765reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2766as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2767encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2768system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2769bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2770
2771And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2772
2773
2774*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2775
2776 * Better support for C++ function names
2777
2778GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2779names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2780(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2781single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2782Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2783
2784GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2785the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2786You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2787lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2788for the list of formats.
2789
2790 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2791
2792Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2793C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2794directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2795can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2796usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2797about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2798this problem.)
2799
2800 * New 'maintenance' command
2801
2802All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2803the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2804can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2805
2806 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2807 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2808 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2809 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2810 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2811 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2812
2813The following commands are new:
2814
2815 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2816 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2817 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2818
2819 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2820
2821We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2822(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2823be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2824read after argv processing.
2825
2826 * New hosts supported
2827
2828Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2829
55241689 2830GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2831
2832We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2833is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2834for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2835masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2836fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2837It costs extra.
2838
2839 * New targets supported
2840
2841Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2842
2843 * More smarts about finding #include files
2844
2845GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2846all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2847greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2848especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2849the one that contains your sources.
2850
2851We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2852breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2853try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2854
2855 * Interesting infernals change
2856
2857GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2858section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2859target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2860stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2861
2862 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2863
2864There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2865 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2866 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2867
2868See the ChangeLog for details.
2869
2870*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2871
2872 * New machines supported (host and target)
2873
2874IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2875
2876SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2877
2878 * New malloc package
2879
2880GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2881Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2882capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2883This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2884pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2885more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2886
2887 * info proc
2888
2889The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2890'help info proc' for details.
2891
2892 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2893
2894The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2895Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2896possible.
2897
2898 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2899
2900Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2901support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2902conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2903environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2904that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2905in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2906
2907 * Cross byte order fixes
2908
2909Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2910targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2911
2912 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2913
2914If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2915system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2916`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2917program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2918called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2919Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2920and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2921the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2922option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2923starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2924
2925You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2926the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2927information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2928slower, but makes future operations faster.
2929
2930The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2931build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2932A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2933use is:
2934
2935 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2936
2937The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2938It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2939shared across multiple host platforms.
2940
2941 * longjmp() handling
2942
2943GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2944siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2945all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2946platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2947
2948 * Solaris 2.0
2949
2950Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2951this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2952reading symbols.
2953
2954 * Bug fixes
2955
2956As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2957People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2958crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2959
2960*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2961
2962 * New machines supported (host and target)
2963
2964SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2965 (except core files)
2966BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2967Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2968
2969 * New machines supported (target)
2970
2971AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2972
2973 * C++ support
2974
2975GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2976The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2977per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2978
2979GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2980`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2981extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2982good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2983will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2984released.
2985
2986 * New features for SVR4
2987
2988GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2989shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2990only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2991
2992The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2993on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2994it prints the address mappings of the process.
2995
2996If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2997bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2998
2999 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3000
3001Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3002now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3003skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3004make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3005same code linked statically.
3006
3007 * New Getopt
3008
3009GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3010version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3011continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3012Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3013added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3014future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3015
3016 * Bugs fixed
3017
3018The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3019Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3020See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3021
3022
3023*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3024
3025 * New machines supported (host and target)
3026
3027Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3028NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3029Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3030
3031 * Almost SCO Unix support
3032
3033We had hoped to support:
3034SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3035(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3036that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3037about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3038
3039 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3040
3041GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3042debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3043is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3044send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3045reqired (if any).
3046
3047 * New Readline
3048
3049GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3050is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3051required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3052
3053 * Bugs fixed
3054
3055The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3056Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3057See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3058
3059 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3060
3061GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3062supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3063symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3064
3065Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3066mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3067debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3068mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3069version 2.
3070
3071Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3072really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3073line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3074variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3075situation somewhat.
3076
3077When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3078However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3079methods.
3080
3081We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3082DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3083encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3084
3085
3086*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3087
3088 * Improved configuration
3089
3090Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3091Porting BFD is simpler.
3092
3093 * Stepping improved
3094
3095The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3096of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3097in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3098function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3099
3100 * Bug fixing
3101
3102Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3103
3104 * New host supported (not target)
3105
3106Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3107
3108
3109*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3110
3111 * Multiple source language support
3112
3113GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3114It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3115and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3116language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3117You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3118`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3119
3120 * GDB and Modula-2
3121
3122GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3123currently under development at the State University of New York at
3124Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3125continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3126
3127Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3128debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3129symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3130
3131There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3132in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3133
3134 * set write on/off
3135
3136GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3137a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3138the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3139by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3140effect immediately.
3141
3142 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3143
3144When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3145shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3146The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3147examining core files.
3148
3149 * set listsize
3150
3151You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3152The default is 10.
3153
3154 * New machines supported (host and target)
3155
3156SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3157Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3158Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3159
3160 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3161
3162IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3163
3164 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3165
3166AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3167AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3168Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3169
3170 * New remote interfaces
3171
3172AMD 29000 Adapt
3173AMD 29000 Minimon
3174
3175
3176*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3177
3178 * New Facilities
3179
3180Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3181
3182Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3183target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3184is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3185remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3186remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3187also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3188using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3189stub on the target system.
3190
3191New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3192
3193GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3194library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3195object file types such as a.out and coff.
3196
3197There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3198refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3199
3200
3201 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3202
3203All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3204by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3205
3206For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3207``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3208Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3209
3210What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3211print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3212will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3213all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3214
3215confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3216 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3217 it is already running. Default is ON.
3218
3219editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3220 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3221 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3222 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3223 Default is ON.
3224
3225history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3226 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3227 or the value of the environment variable
3228 GDBHISTFILE.
3229
3230history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3231 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3232 HISTSIZE.
3233
3234history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3235 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3236 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3237
3238history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3239 history expansion will be performed on
3240 command line input. The default is OFF.
3241
3242radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3243 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3244 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3245
3246height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3247 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3248 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3249 variable TERM.
3250
3251width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3252 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3253 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3254 variable TERM.
3255
3256Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3257``set width'' instead.
3258
3259print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3260 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3261 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3262 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3263
3264print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3265 is OFF.
3266
3267print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3268 "raw" form if off.
3269
3270print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3271 like instructions.
3272
3273print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3274
3275
3276 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3277
3278The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3279new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3280are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3281window.
3282
3283
3284 * Support for Shared Libraries
3285
3286GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3287Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3288before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3289happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3290At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3291from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3292shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3293It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3294
3295sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3296 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3297 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3298
3299info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3300
3301
3302 * Watchpoints
3303
3304A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3305expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3306tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3307quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3308problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3309more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3310
3311watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3312
3313info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3314
3315delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3316disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3317enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3318
3319
3320 * C++ multiple inheritance
3321
3322When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3323for C++ programs.
3324
3325 * C++ exception handling
3326
3327Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3328ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3329the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3330handler's context).
3331
3332catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3333 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3334 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3335
3336info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3337 current stack frame.
3338
3339
3340 * Minor command changes
3341
3342The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3343command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3344is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3345
3346The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3347at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3348frames without printing.
3349
3350 * New directory command
3351
3352'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3353The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3354about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3355with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3356find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3357
3358 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3359
3360For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3361for more details.
3362
3363GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3364two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3365Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3366where the program that you are debugging will run.
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