Really remove file.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
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6* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
7
8Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
9wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
10
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11* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
12
13The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
14permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
15systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
16
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17* New native configurations
18
8f2d3ea0 19OpenBSD/m68k m68k-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 20OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 21NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 22OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 23
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24* REMOVED configurations and files
25
26Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
27Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
28Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
29Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
30Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
31AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
32Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
33decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
34riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
35sonymips mips-sony-*
36sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
37
faae5abe 38*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 39
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40* Removed --with-mmalloc
41
42Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
43conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
44
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45* Changes in AMD64 configurations
46
47The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
48the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
49and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
50you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
51
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52* Revised SPARC target
53
54The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
55FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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56support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
57from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
58(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 59
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60* New C++ demangler
61
62GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
63names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
64with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
65programs.
66
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67* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
68
69GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
70arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
71encountered these.
72
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73* C++ nested types and namespaces
74
75GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
76improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
77is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
78Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
79namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
80"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
81frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
82if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
83GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
84
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85* New native configurations
86
87NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 88OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 89OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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90OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
91OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 92
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93* New debugging protocols
94
95M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
96
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97* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
98
99The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
100and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
101tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
102
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103* OBSOLETE configurations and files
104
105Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
106been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
107configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
108permanently REMOVED.
109
110Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
111Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
112Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
113Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
114Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
115AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
116Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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117decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
118riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
119sonymips mips-sony-*
120sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 121
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122* REMOVED configurations and files
123
124SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
125SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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126Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
127Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
128H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
129HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
130HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
131HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
132PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 133386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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134Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
135 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
136 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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137SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
138SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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139Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
140Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 141
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142*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
143
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144* Objective-C
145
146Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
147integrated into GDB.
148
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149* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
150
151DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
152information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
153By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
154backtraces.
155
156The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
157have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
158DWARF 2 CFI support.
159
160* Hosted file I/O.
161
162GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
163file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
164remote protocol documentation for details.
165
166* All targets using the new architecture framework.
167
168All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
169architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
170to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
171ppc32 on ppc64).
172
173* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
174
175GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
176per-thread variables.
177
178* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
179
180GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
181GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
182
183* Separate debug info.
184
185GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
186automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
187of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
188system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
189and optional debug files.
190
191* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
192
193DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
194describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
195debugger.
196
197GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
198for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
199
200* Java
201
202A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
203Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
204considered "useable".
205
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206* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
207
208The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
209commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
210kernel.
211
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212* GDB supports logging output to a file
213
214There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
215used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 216
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217* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
218
219The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
220disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
221command.
222
e286caf2 223* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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224
225The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
226registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
227
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228* Profiling support
229
230A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
231be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
232session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
233"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
234data, for more informative profiling results.
235
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236* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
237
238The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
239option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 240"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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241
242Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
243removed.
244
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245Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
246Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
247Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
248 in a subsequent -var-update.
249
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250* New native configurations.
251
252FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
253
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254* Multi-arched targets.
255
b4263afa 256HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 257Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 258
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259* OBSOLETE configurations and files
260
261Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
262been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
263configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
264permanently REMOVED.
265
8b0e5691 266Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 267Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 268H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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269HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
270HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
271HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 272PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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273Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
274 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
275 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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276Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
277Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 278
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279* REMOVED configurations and files
280
281V850EA ISA
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282Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
283IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
284i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
285i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
286i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
287HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
288 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
289 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
290Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
291Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
292Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
293OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
294I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 295
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296* MIPS $fp behavior changed
297
298The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
299the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
300context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
301address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
302The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
303
299ffc64 304*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 305
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306* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
307
308When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
309`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
310in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
311library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
312shared libs like mad''.
313
b9d14705 314* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 315
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316Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
317the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
318arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
319powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 320
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321* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
322
323GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
324and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
325they expand.
326
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327The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
328invocations in expression, and shows the result.
329
330The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
331macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
332
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333Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
334information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
335your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
336information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
337
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338* Multi-arched targets.
339
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340DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
341DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 342NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 343National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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344Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
345Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 346
cd9bfe15 347* New targets.
e33ce519 348
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349Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
350
e33ce519 351
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352* New native configurations
353
354Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 355SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 356MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 357UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 358
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359* OBSOLETE configurations and files
360
361Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
362been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
363configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
364permanently REMOVED.
365
92eb23c5 366Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 367OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 368IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 369Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 370Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 371Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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372i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
373i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
374i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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375HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
376 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
377 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 378I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 379
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380* OBSOLETE languages
381
382CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
383
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384* REMOVED configurations and files
385
386AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
387A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
388AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
389AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
390AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
391
392testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
393
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394* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
395
396This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
397commands. The default is 1024.
398
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399* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
400
401Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
402
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403* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
404
405These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
406to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
407from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 408
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409* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
410
411The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
412including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
413of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
414
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415*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
416
417* New targets.
418
419Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
420
421* Bug fixes
422
423gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
424mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
425Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
426
427gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
428dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
429Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
430
431Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
432Surprisingly enough, it works now.
433By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
434
435i386 hardware watchpoint support:
436avoid misses on second run for some targets.
437By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
438
37057839 439*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 440
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441* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
442
443This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
444really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
445In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
446target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
447This can be a significant performance improvement on some
448(notably embedded) targets.
449
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450* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
451
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452This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
453process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
454GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
455hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 456
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457* New command line option
458
459GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
460
461* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
462
463There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
464command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
465a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
466be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
467open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
468issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
469a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
470it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
471GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
472is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
473
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474* Changes in ARM configurations.
475
476Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
477configuration is fully multi-arch.
478
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479* New native configurations
480
fe419ffc 481ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 482x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 483AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 484Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 485
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486* New targets
487
488Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
489
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490* OBSOLETE configurations and files
491
492Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
493been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
494configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
495permanently REMOVED.
496
497AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
498A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
499AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
500AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
501AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
502
b4ceaee6 503testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 504
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505* REMOVED configurations and files
506
507TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 508WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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509PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
510PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
511PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 512Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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513Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
514 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 515SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 516Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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517Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
518ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 519Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 520
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521* Changes to command line processing
522
523The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
524for the inferior from gdb's command line.
525
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526* Changes to key bindings
527
528There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
529
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530*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
531
532Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
533
534Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
535corrupted.
536
537Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
538
539Numerous documentation fixes.
540
541Numerous testsuite fixes.
542
34f47bc4 543*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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544
545* New native configurations
546
547Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
548x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 549MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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550MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
551ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 552s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 553
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554* New targets
555
def90278 556Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 557CRIS cris-axis
55241689 558UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 559
17e78a56 560* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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561
562x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 563Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
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564Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
565 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
566TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
567WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 568Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
569PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
570PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
571PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 572SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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AC
573Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
574ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 575Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 576
17e78a56
AC
577stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
578kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
579
7fcca85b
AC
580Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
581been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
582configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
583permanently REMOVED.
584
a196c81c 585* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
586
587Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
588Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
589Pyramid pyramid-*-*
590ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
591Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 592ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 593
6d6b80e5 594* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 595
6d6b80e5 596GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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597sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
598present.
599
bf64bfd6
AC
600* Other news:
601
e23194cb
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602* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
603
604* The MI enabled by default.
605
606The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
607revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
608engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
609using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
610which is now deprecated.
611
612* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
613
614GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
615main features are supported:
616
617 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
618
619 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
620 extension;
621
622 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
623
624 - a Pascal expression parser.
625
626However, some important features are not yet supported.
627
628 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
629
630 - there are some problems with boolean types;
631
632 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
633 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
634
635 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
636
637 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
638
639* Changes in completion.
640
641Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
642to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
643users expect at the shell prompt.
644
645Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
646`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
647program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
648files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
649be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
650considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
651name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
652
653`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
654
655* New platform-independent commands:
656
657It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
658hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
659documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
660
661* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
662
d7275149
MK
663Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
664revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
665many threads as your system allows you to have.
666
e23194cb
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667Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
668
d7275149
MK
669Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
670multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
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671
672* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
673
674Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
675
e23194cb
EZ
676GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
677debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
678supported.)
679
680* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
681
682Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
683breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
684implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
685put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
686and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
687registers.
688
689The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
690debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
691watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
692
693* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
694
695New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
696the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
697
698New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
699display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
700IDT.
701
702New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
703from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
704New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
705a given linear address.
706
707GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
708program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
709which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
710
711DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
712
6c56c069
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713It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
714
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715* Changes in documentation.
716
717All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
718Documentation License.
719
720Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
721manual.
722
723TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
724
725Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
726manual.
727
728The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
729documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
730hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
731
5d6640b1
AC
732* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
733
734The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
735``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
736contents of this file.
737
1a1d8446
AC
738* gdba.el deleted
739
740GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 741
9debab2f 742*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 743
c63ce875
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744* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
745
746Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
747programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
748displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
749greater level of detail.
750
751* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
752
753It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
754bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
755on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
756written.
757
758* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
759
760The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
761necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
762machines ``out of the box''.
763
764The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
765possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
766signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
767would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
768interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
769
770It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
771standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
772even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
773and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
774terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
775
776The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
777enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
778also works.
779
780DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
781GDB.
782
783It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
784directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
785times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
786breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
787
ed9a39eb
JM
788* New native configurations
789
790ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 791PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 792
7a292a7a
SS
793* New targets
794
96baa820 795Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
796x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
797PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
798TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
799
085dd6e6
JM
800* OBSOLETE configurations
801
802Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
803Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 804Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 805ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 806Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 807
9debab2f
AC
808Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
809but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
810these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
811be permanently REMOVED.
812
5330533d
SS
813* Gould support removed
814
815Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
816
bc9e5bbf
AC
817* New features for SVR4
818
819On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
820without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
821load symbols from the running process's executable file.
822
823* Many C++ enhancements
824
825C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
826in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
827
adf40b2e
JM
828* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
829
830A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
831sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
832with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
833``|<program> <args>'' vis:
834
835 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
836 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
837
43e526b9
JM
838* MIPS 64 remote protocol
839
840A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
841expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
842instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
843
844The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
845added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
846
96baa820
JM
847* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
848
849The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
850``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
851include ``set remote P-packet''.
852
11cf8741
JM
853* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
854
855The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
856accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
857``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
858
7876dd43
DB
859* ``apropos'' command added.
860
861The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
862documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
863try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
864
bc9e5bbf
AC
865* New MI interface
866
867A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
868interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
869process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
870"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
871enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
872
873 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
874
c906108c
SS
875*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
876
877* New native configurations
878
879HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
880HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 881M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
882
883* New targets
884
885Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
886Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
887Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
888
889* OBSOLETE configurations
890
891Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
892
893Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
894but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
895these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
896be permanently REMOVED.
897
898* ANSI/ISO C
899
900As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
901buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
902containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
903use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
904available. If this is not true, please report the affected
905configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
906information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
907already.
908
909* Readline 2.2
910
911GDB now uses readline 2.2.
912
913* set extension-language
914
915You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
916languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
917you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
918 set extension-language .c c++
919The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
920and their associated languages.
921
922* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
923
924When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
925you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
926PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
927
928 set processor NAME
929
930sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
931following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
932
933 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
934 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
935 403 IBM PowerPC 403
936 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
937 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
938 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
939 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
940 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
941 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
942 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
943 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
944
945At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
946special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
947registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
948only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
949
950* HP-UX support
951
952Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
953more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
954library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
955support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
956for xdb and dbx commands.
957
958* Catchpoints
959
960HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
961generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
962to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
963
964This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
965argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
966output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
967
968* Debugging across forks
969
970On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
971in the inferior.
972
973* TUI
974
975HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
976it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
977configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
978
979* GDB remote protocol additions
980
981A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
982Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
983fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
984allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
985
986For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
987full 64-bit address. The command
988
989 set remoteaddresssize 32
990
991can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
992the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
993will be discarded.
994
995In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
996command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
997
998 maint packet heythere
999
1000sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1001disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1002time.
1003
1004The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1005target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1006downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1007
1008* Tracing can collect general expressions
1009
1010You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1011further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1012doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1013
1014* mask-address variable for Mips
1015
1016For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1017a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1018of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1019
1020* Higher serial baud rates
1021
1022GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1023230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1024to achieve all of these rates.)
1025
1026* i960 simulator
1027
1028The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1029builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1030
1031
1032*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1033
1034* New native configurations
1035
1036Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1037Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1038Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1039PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1040PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1041Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1042Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1043
1044* New targets
1045
1046Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1047Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1048Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1049Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1050MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1051MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1052MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1053Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1054Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1055Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1056NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1057
1058* New debugging protocols
1059
1060ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1061M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1062DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1063PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1064PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1065Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1066
1067* DWARF 2
1068
1069All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1070format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1071information.
1072
1073* Java frontend
1074
1075GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1076only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1077
1078* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1079
1080For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1081loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1082locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1083
1084* Live range splitting
1085
1086GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1087range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1088more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1089
1090* Hurd support
1091
1092GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1093updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1094
1095* ARM Thumb support
1096
1097GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1098instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1099instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1100accordingly.
1101
1102* MIPS16 support
1103
1104GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1105instruction set.
1106
1107* Overlay support
1108
1109GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1110linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1111will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1112control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1113additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1114in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1115
1116* info symbol
1117
1118The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1119the symbol at the specified address.
1120
1121* Trace support
1122
1123The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1124asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1125extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1126includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1127file tracepoint.c for more details.
1128
1129* MIPS simulator
1130
1131Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1132by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1133of most MIPS variants.
1134
1135* Sparc simulator
1136
1137Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1138by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1139Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1140
1141* set architecture
1142
1143For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1144basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1145architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1146the possible architectures.
1147
1148*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1149
1150* New native configurations
1151
1152Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1153M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1154PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1155PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1156PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1157RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1158
1159* New targets
1160
1161ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1162I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1163MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1164MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1165PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1166Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1167Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1168
1169* PowerPC simulator
1170
1171The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1172contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1173PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1174basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1175performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1176
1177* Solaris 2.5
1178
1179GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1180
1181* Windows 95/NT native
1182
1183GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1184To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1185which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1186Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1187ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1188
1189* dont-repeat command
1190
1191If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1192command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1193useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1194extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1195
1196* Send break instead of ^C
1197
1198The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1199rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1200GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1201
1202* Remote protocol timeout
1203
1204The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1205that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1206to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1207
1208* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1209
1210By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1211loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1212stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1213when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1214in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1215
1216Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1217/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1218automatically on hpux10.
1219
1220* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1221
1222Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1223
1224* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1225
1226When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1227may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1228the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1229every character. The default value is 1050.
1230
1231* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1232
1233If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1234a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1235replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1236details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1237remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1238to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1239
1240* Speedups for remote debugging
1241
1242GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1243the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1244and more efficient S-record downloading.
1245
1246* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1247
1248GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1249Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1250
1251*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1252
1253* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1254
1255The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1256can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1257
1258* Remote targets use caching
1259
1260Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1261remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1262it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1263debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1264off' turns the the data cache off.
1265
1266* Remote targets may have threads
1267
1268The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1269in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1270gdb/remote.c for details.
1271
1272* NetROM support
1273
1274If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1275support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1276acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1277write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1278support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1279another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1280sequence is something like
1281
1282 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1283 load <prog>
1284 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1285
1286* Macintosh host
1287
1288GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1289may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1290it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1291available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1292device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1293directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1294scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1295mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1296
1297* Autoconf
1298
1299GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1300but does simplify configuration and building.
1301
1302* hpux10
1303
1304GDB now supports hpux10.
1305
1306*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1307
1308* New native configurations
1309
1310x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1311x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1312NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1313Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1314
1315* New targets
1316
1317A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1318HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1319CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1320PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1321WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1322
1323* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1324
1325GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1326possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1327filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1328the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1329if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1330
1331* Arguments to user-defined commands
1332
1333User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1334Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1335trivial example:
1336define adder
1337 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1338
1339To execute the command use:
1340adder 1 2 3
1341
1342Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1343Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1344use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1345
1346* New `if' and `while' commands
1347
1348This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1349commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1350expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1351execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1352terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1353`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1354if the expression is zero.
1355
1356* Fortran source language mode
1357
1358GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1359Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1360variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1361with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1362Fortran compilers.
1363
1364* Better HPUX support
1365
1366Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1367running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1368processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1369for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1370that behavior do the following before running the program:
1371
1372 adb -w a.out
1373 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1374 control-d
1375
1376This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1377To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1378
1379 adb -w a.out
1380 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1381 control-d
1382
1383You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1384the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1385external linkage.
1386
1387GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1388HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1389
1390* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1391
1392You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1393commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1394current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1395"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1396associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1397configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1398
1399* New DOS host serial code
1400
1401This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1402no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1403a PC's serial port.
1404
1405*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1406
1407* New "complete" command
1408
1409This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1410were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1411
1412* Trailing space optional in prompt
1413
1414"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1415allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1416
1417* Breakpoint hit counts
1418
1419"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1420has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1421can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1422to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1423less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1424that breakpoint.
1425
1426* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1427
1428"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1429an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1430arrays actually contain only short strings.
1431
1432* Shared library breakpoints
1433
1434In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1435breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1436
1437* Hardware watchpoints
1438
1439There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1440targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1441
55241689 1442Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1443
1444* Annotations
1445
1446Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1447and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1448
1449* Improved Irix 5 support
1450
1451GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1452
1453* Improved HPPA support
1454
1455GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1456
1457* New native configurations
1458
1459Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1460HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1461Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1462RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1463
1464* New targets
1465
1466OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1467MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1468Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1469
1470* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1471
1472There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1473This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1474
1475* Fixes
1476
1477As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1478and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1479
1480*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1481
1482* Irix 5 is now supported
1483
1484* HPPA support
1485
1486GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1487to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1488GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1489of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1490can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1491
1492
1493*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1494
1495* User visible changes:
1496
1497* Remote Debugging
1498
1499The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1500target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1501debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1502integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1503debugging info for the mips target).
1504
1505* DEC Alpha native support
1506
1507GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1508debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1509work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1510Alpha-specific notes.
1511
1512* Preliminary thread implementation
1513
1514GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1515
1516* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1517
1518This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1519to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1520for details).
1521
1522* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1523
1524This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1525mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1526call methods, ...etc.
1527
1528*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1529
1530 * User visible changes:
1531
1532Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1533supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1534other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1535somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1536
1537Filename completion now works.
1538
1539When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1540arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1541addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1542
1543All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1544vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1545should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1546your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1547to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1548
1549 * DEC alpha support
1550
1551This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1552cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1553
1554
1555*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1556
1557 * Testsuite
1558
1559This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1560The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1561via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1562
1563 * C++ demangling
1564
1565'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1566emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1567Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1568disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1569use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1570
1571 * Simulators
1572
1573GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1574So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1575Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1576
1577 * New targets supported
1578
1579H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1580H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1581SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1582Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1583IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1584
1585Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1586version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1587GO32 memory extender.
1588
1589 * New remote protocols
1590
1591MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1592
1593 * New source languages supported
1594
1595This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1596used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1597into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1598
1599
1600*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1601
1602 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1603
1604GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1605version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1606University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1607compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1608format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1609(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1610
1611Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1612
1613 * Faster and better demangling
1614
1615We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1616demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1617character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1618only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1619This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1620increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1621symbol lookups.
1622
1623`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1624from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1625compiler does not actually implement.
1626
1627 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1628
1629In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1630inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1631recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1632very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1633The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1634circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1635fix.
1636
1637The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1638release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1639
1640 * Improved configure script
1641
1642The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1643you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1644host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1645done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1646
1647We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1648version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1649`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1650The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1651only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1652We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1653
1654 * Documentation improvements
1655
1656There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1657produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1658before submitting changes.
1659
1660The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1661M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1662`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1663you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1664a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1665
1666*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1667We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1668been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1669or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1670`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1671around this problem.
1672
1673 * New features
1674
1675GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1676the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1677`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1678the target program.
1679
1680The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1681how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1682
1683 * New native hosts supported
1684
1685HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1686386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1687
1688 * New targets supported
1689
1690AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1691
1692 * New file formats supported
1693
1694BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1695HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1696
1697 * Major bug fixes
1698
1699Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1700
1701We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1702printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1703
1704We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1705for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1706release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1707
1708You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1709will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1710
1711We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1712for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1713especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1714libraries.
1715
1716The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1717information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1718command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1719any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1720when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1721
1722 * Internal improvements
1723
1724GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1725debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1726
1727GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1728Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1729symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1730contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1731shared code that handles any of them.
1732
1733 * New command line options
1734
1735We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1736
1737 * Mmalloc licensing
1738
1739The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1740General Public License.
1741
1742*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1743
1744 * Host/native/target split
1745
1746GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1747hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1748target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1749local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1750ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1751
1752The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1753GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1754is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1755code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1756any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1757built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1758handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1759
1760GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1761It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1762plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1763
1764 * New hosts supported
1765
1766HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1767386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1768386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1769
1770 * New targets supported
1771
1772Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
177368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1774
1775 * New native hosts supported
1776
1777386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1778 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1779386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1780
1781 * New file formats supported
1782
1783BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1784supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1785format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1786
1787 * New commands
1788
1789`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1790`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1791These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1792
1793`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1794
1795You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1796scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1797prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1798executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1799
1800 * C++ improvements
1801
1802We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1803info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1804symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1805
1806Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1807
1808 * Major bug fixes
1809
1810The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1811fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1812by the compiler.
1813
1814We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1815support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1816
1817John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1818slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1819that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1820purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1821the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1822mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1823
1824Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1825about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1826completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1827we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1828
1829 * AMD 29k support
1830
1831A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1832specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1833calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1834usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1835in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1836
1837We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1838Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1839of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1840resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1841
1842 * Remote interfaces
1843
1844We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1845with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1846message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1847This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1848needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1849breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1850each instruction being stepped through.
1851
1852The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1853registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1854
1855There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1856find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1857Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1858processor with a serial port.
1859
1860 * Configuration
1861
1862Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1863`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1864supported, and what files each one uses.
1865
1866 * Library changes
1867
1868There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1869disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1870Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1871disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1872
1873The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1874Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1875can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1876grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1877
1878 * Documentation
1879
1880The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1881reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1882as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1883encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1884system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1885bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1886
1887And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1888
1889
1890*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1891
1892 * Better support for C++ function names
1893
1894GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1895names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1896(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1897single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1898Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1899
1900GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1901the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1902You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1903lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1904for the list of formats.
1905
1906 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1907
1908Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1909C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1910directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1911can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1912usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1913about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1914this problem.)
1915
1916 * New 'maintenance' command
1917
1918All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1919the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1920can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1921
1922 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1923 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1924 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1925 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1926 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1927 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1928
1929The following commands are new:
1930
1931 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1932 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1933 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1934
1935 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1936
1937We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1938(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1939be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1940read after argv processing.
1941
1942 * New hosts supported
1943
1944Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1945
55241689 1946GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1947
1948We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1949is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1950for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1951masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1952fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1953It costs extra.
1954
1955 * New targets supported
1956
1957Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1958
1959 * More smarts about finding #include files
1960
1961GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1962all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1963greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1964especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1965the one that contains your sources.
1966
1967We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1968breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1969try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1970
1971 * Interesting infernals change
1972
1973GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1974section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1975target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1976stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1977
1978 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1979
1980There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1981 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1982 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1983
1984See the ChangeLog for details.
1985
1986*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1987
1988 * New machines supported (host and target)
1989
1990IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1991
1992SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1993
1994 * New malloc package
1995
1996GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1997Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1998capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1999This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2000pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2001more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2002
2003 * info proc
2004
2005The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2006'help info proc' for details.
2007
2008 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2009
2010The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2011Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2012possible.
2013
2014 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2015
2016Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2017support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2018conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2019environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2020that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2021in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2022
2023 * Cross byte order fixes
2024
2025Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2026targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2027
2028 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2029
2030If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2031system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2032`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2033program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2034called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2035Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2036and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2037the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2038option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2039starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2040
2041You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2042the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2043information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2044slower, but makes future operations faster.
2045
2046The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2047build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2048A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2049use is:
2050
2051 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2052
2053The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2054It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2055shared across multiple host platforms.
2056
2057 * longjmp() handling
2058
2059GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2060siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2061all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2062platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2063
2064 * Solaris 2.0
2065
2066Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2067this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2068reading symbols.
2069
2070 * Bug fixes
2071
2072As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2073People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2074crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2075
2076*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2077
2078 * New machines supported (host and target)
2079
2080SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2081 (except core files)
2082BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2083Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2084
2085 * New machines supported (target)
2086
2087AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2088
2089 * C++ support
2090
2091GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2092The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2093per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2094
2095GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2096`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2097extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2098good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2099will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2100released.
2101
2102 * New features for SVR4
2103
2104GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2105shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2106only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2107
2108The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2109on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2110it prints the address mappings of the process.
2111
2112If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2113bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2114
2115 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2116
2117Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2118now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2119skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2120make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2121same code linked statically.
2122
2123 * New Getopt
2124
2125GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2126version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2127continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2128Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2129added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2130future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2131
2132 * Bugs fixed
2133
2134The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2135Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2136See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2137
2138
2139*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2140
2141 * New machines supported (host and target)
2142
2143Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2144NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2145Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2146
2147 * Almost SCO Unix support
2148
2149We had hoped to support:
2150SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2151(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2152that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2153about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2154
2155 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2156
2157GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2158debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2159is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2160send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2161reqired (if any).
2162
2163 * New Readline
2164
2165GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2166is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2167required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2168
2169 * Bugs fixed
2170
2171The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2172Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2173See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2174
2175 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2176
2177GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2178supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2179symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2180
2181Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2182mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2183debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2184mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2185version 2.
2186
2187Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2188really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2189line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2190variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2191situation somewhat.
2192
2193When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2194However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2195methods.
2196
2197We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2198DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2199encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2200
2201
2202*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2203
2204 * Improved configuration
2205
2206Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2207Porting BFD is simpler.
2208
2209 * Stepping improved
2210
2211The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2212of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2213in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2214function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2215
2216 * Bug fixing
2217
2218Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2219
2220 * New host supported (not target)
2221
2222Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2223
2224
2225*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2226
2227 * Multiple source language support
2228
2229GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2230It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2231and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2232language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2233You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2234`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2235
2236 * GDB and Modula-2
2237
2238GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2239currently under development at the State University of New York at
2240Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2241continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2242
2243Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2244debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2245symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2246
2247There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2248in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2249
2250 * set write on/off
2251
2252GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2253a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2254the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2255by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2256effect immediately.
2257
2258 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2259
2260When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2261shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2262The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2263examining core files.
2264
2265 * set listsize
2266
2267You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2268The default is 10.
2269
2270 * New machines supported (host and target)
2271
2272SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2273Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2274Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2275
2276 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2277
2278IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2279
2280 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2281
2282AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2283AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2284Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2285
2286 * New remote interfaces
2287
2288AMD 29000 Adapt
2289AMD 29000 Minimon
2290
2291
2292*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2293
2294 * New Facilities
2295
2296Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2297
2298Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2299target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2300is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2301remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2302remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2303also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2304using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2305stub on the target system.
2306
2307New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2308
2309GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2310library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2311object file types such as a.out and coff.
2312
2313There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2314refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2315
2316
2317 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2318
2319All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2320by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2321
2322For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2323``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2324Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2325
2326What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2327print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2328will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2329all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2330
2331confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2332 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2333 it is already running. Default is ON.
2334
2335editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2336 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2337 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2338 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2339 Default is ON.
2340
2341history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2342 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2343 or the value of the environment variable
2344 GDBHISTFILE.
2345
2346history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2347 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2348 HISTSIZE.
2349
2350history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2351 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2352 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2353
2354history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2355 history expansion will be performed on
2356 command line input. The default is OFF.
2357
2358radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2359 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2360 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2361
2362height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2363 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2364 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2365 variable TERM.
2366
2367width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2368 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2369 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2370 variable TERM.
2371
2372Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2373``set width'' instead.
2374
2375print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2376 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2377 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2378 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2379
2380print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2381 is OFF.
2382
2383print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2384 "raw" form if off.
2385
2386print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2387 like instructions.
2388
2389print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2390
2391
2392 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2393
2394The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2395new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2396are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2397window.
2398
2399
2400 * Support for Shared Libraries
2401
2402GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2403Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2404before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2405happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2406At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2407from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2408shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2409It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2410
2411sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2412 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2413 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2414
2415info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2416
2417
2418 * Watchpoints
2419
2420A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2421expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2422tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2423quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2424problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2425more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2426
2427watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2428
2429info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2430
2431delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2432disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2433enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2434
2435
2436 * C++ multiple inheritance
2437
2438When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2439for C++ programs.
2440
2441 * C++ exception handling
2442
2443Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2444ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2445the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2446handler's context).
2447
2448catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2449 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2450 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2451
2452info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2453 current stack frame.
2454
2455
2456 * Minor command changes
2457
2458The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2459command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2460is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2461
2462The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2463at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2464frames without printing.
2465
2466 * New directory command
2467
2468'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2469The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2470about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2471with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2472find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2473
2474 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2475
2476For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2477for more details.
2478
2479GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2480two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2481Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2482where the program that you are debugging will run.
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