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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
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6* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
7
8The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
9and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
10tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
11
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12*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
13
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14* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
15
16The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
17commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
18kernel.
19
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20* GDB supports logging output to a file
21
22There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
23used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 24
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25* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
26
27The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
28disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
29command.
30
e286caf2 31* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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32
33The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
34registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
35
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36* Profiling support
37
38A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
39be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
40session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
41"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
42data, for more informative profiling results.
43
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44* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
45
46The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
47option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 48"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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49
50Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
51removed.
52
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53Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
54Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
55Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
56 in a subsequent -var-update.
57
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58* New native configurations.
59
60FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
61
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62* Multi-arched targets.
63
b4263afa 64HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
880bc914 65Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 66
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67* OBSOLETE configurations and files
68
69Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
70been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
71configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
72permanently REMOVED.
73
8b0e5691 74Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 75Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 76H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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77HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
78HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
79HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 80PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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81Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
82 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
83 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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84Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
85Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 86
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87* REMOVED configurations and files
88
89V850EA ISA
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90Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
91IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
92i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
93i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
94i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
95HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
96 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
97 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
98Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
99Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
100Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
101OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
102I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 103
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104* MIPS $fp behavior changed
105
106The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
107the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
108context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
109address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
110The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
111
299ffc64 112*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 113
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114* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
115
116When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
117`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
118in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
119library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
120shared libs like mad''.
121
b9d14705 122* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 123
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124Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
125the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
126arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
127powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 128
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129* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
130
131GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
132and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
133they expand.
134
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135The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
136invocations in expression, and shows the result.
137
138The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
139macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
140
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141Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
142information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
143your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
144information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
145
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146* Multi-arched targets.
147
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148DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
149DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 150NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 151National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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152Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
153Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 154
cd9bfe15 155* New targets.
e33ce519 156
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157Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
158
e33ce519 159
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160* New native configurations
161
162Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 163SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 164MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 165UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 166
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167* OBSOLETE configurations and files
168
169Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
170been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
171configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
172permanently REMOVED.
173
92eb23c5 174Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 175OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 176IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 177Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 178Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 179Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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180i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
181i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
182i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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183HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
184 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
185 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 186I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 187
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188* OBSOLETE languages
189
190CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
191
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192* REMOVED configurations and files
193
194AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
195A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
196AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
197AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
198AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
199
200testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
201
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202* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
203
204This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
205commands. The default is 1024.
206
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207* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
208
209Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
210
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211* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
212
213These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
214to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
215from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 216
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217* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
218
219The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
220including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
221of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
222
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223*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
224
225* New targets.
226
227Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
228
229* Bug fixes
230
231gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
232mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
233Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
234
235gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
236dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
237Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
238
239Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
240Surprisingly enough, it works now.
241By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
242
243i386 hardware watchpoint support:
244avoid misses on second run for some targets.
245By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
246
37057839 247*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 248
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249* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
250
251This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
252really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
253In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
254target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
255This can be a significant performance improvement on some
256(notably embedded) targets.
257
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258* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
259
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260This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
261process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
262GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
263hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 264
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265* New command line option
266
267GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
268
269* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
270
271There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
272command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
273a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
274be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
275open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
276issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
277a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
278it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
279GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
280is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
281
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282* Changes in ARM configurations.
283
284Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
285configuration is fully multi-arch.
286
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287* New native configurations
288
fe419ffc 289ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 290x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 291AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 292Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 293
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294* New targets
295
296Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
297
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298* OBSOLETE configurations and files
299
300Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
301been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
302configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
303permanently REMOVED.
304
305AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
306A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
307AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
308AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
309AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
310
b4ceaee6 311testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 312
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313* REMOVED configurations and files
314
315TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 316WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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317PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
318PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
319PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 320Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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321Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
322 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 323SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 324Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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325Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
326ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 327Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 328
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329* Changes to command line processing
330
331The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
332for the inferior from gdb's command line.
333
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334* Changes to key bindings
335
336There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
337
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338*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
339
340Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
341
342Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
343corrupted.
344
345Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
346
347Numerous documentation fixes.
348
349Numerous testsuite fixes.
350
34f47bc4 351*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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352
353* New native configurations
354
355Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
356x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 357MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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358MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
359ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 360s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 361
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362* New targets
363
def90278 364Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 365CRIS cris-axis
55241689 366UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 367
17e78a56 368* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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369
370x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 371Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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372Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
373 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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374TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
375WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 376Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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377PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
378PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
379PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 380SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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381Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
382ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 383Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 384
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385stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
386kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
387
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388Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
389been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
390configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
391permanently REMOVED.
392
a196c81c 393* REMOVED configurations and files
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394
395Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
396Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
397Pyramid pyramid-*-*
398ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
399Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 400ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 401
6d6b80e5 402* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 403
6d6b80e5 404GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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405sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
406present.
407
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408* Other news:
409
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410* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
411
412* The MI enabled by default.
413
414The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
415revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
416engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
417using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
418which is now deprecated.
419
420* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
421
422GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
423main features are supported:
424
425 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
426
427 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
428 extension;
429
430 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
431
432 - a Pascal expression parser.
433
434However, some important features are not yet supported.
435
436 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
437
438 - there are some problems with boolean types;
439
440 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
441 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
442
443 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
444
445 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
446
447* Changes in completion.
448
449Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
450to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
451users expect at the shell prompt.
452
453Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
454`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
455program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
456files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
457be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
458considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
459name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
460
461`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
462
463* New platform-independent commands:
464
465It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
466hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
467documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
468
469* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
470
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471Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
472revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
473many threads as your system allows you to have.
474
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475Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
476
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477Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
478multi-threaded programs though.
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479
480* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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481
482Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
483
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484GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
485debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
486supported.)
487
488* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
489
490Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
491breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
492implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
493put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
494and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
495registers.
496
497The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
498debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
499watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
500
501* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
502
503New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
504the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
505
506New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
507display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
508IDT.
509
510New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
511from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
512New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
513a given linear address.
514
515GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
516program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
517which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
518
519DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
520
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521It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
522
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523* Changes in documentation.
524
525All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
526Documentation License.
527
528Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
529manual.
530
531TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
532
533Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
534manual.
535
536The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
537documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
538hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
539
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540* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
541
542The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
543``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
544contents of this file.
545
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546* gdba.el deleted
547
548GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 549
9debab2f 550*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 551
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552* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
553
554Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
555programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
556displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
557greater level of detail.
558
559* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
560
561It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
562bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
563on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
564written.
565
566* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
567
568The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
569necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
570machines ``out of the box''.
571
572The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
573possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
574signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
575would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
576interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
577
578It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
579standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
580even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
581and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
582terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
583
584The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
585enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
586also works.
587
588DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
589GDB.
590
591It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
592directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
593times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
594breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
595
ed9a39eb
JM
596* New native configurations
597
598ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 599PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 600
7a292a7a
SS
601* New targets
602
96baa820 603Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
604x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
605PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
606TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
607
085dd6e6
JM
608* OBSOLETE configurations
609
610Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
611Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 612Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 613ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 614Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 615
9debab2f
AC
616Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
617but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
618these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
619be permanently REMOVED.
620
5330533d
SS
621* Gould support removed
622
623Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
624
bc9e5bbf
AC
625* New features for SVR4
626
627On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
628without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
629load symbols from the running process's executable file.
630
631* Many C++ enhancements
632
633C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
634in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
635
adf40b2e
JM
636* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
637
638A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
639sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
640with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
641``|<program> <args>'' vis:
642
643 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
644 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
645
43e526b9
JM
646* MIPS 64 remote protocol
647
648A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
649expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
650instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
651
652The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
653added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
654
96baa820
JM
655* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
656
657The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
658``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
659include ``set remote P-packet''.
660
11cf8741
JM
661* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
662
663The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
664accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
665``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
666
7876dd43
DB
667* ``apropos'' command added.
668
669The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
670documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
671try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
672
bc9e5bbf
AC
673* New MI interface
674
675A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
676interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
677process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
678"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
679enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
680
681 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
682
c906108c
SS
683*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
684
685* New native configurations
686
687HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
688HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 689M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
690
691* New targets
692
693Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
694Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
695Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
696
697* OBSOLETE configurations
698
699Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
700
701Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
702but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
703these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
704be permanently REMOVED.
705
706* ANSI/ISO C
707
708As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
709buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
710containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
711use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
712available. If this is not true, please report the affected
713configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
714information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
715already.
716
717* Readline 2.2
718
719GDB now uses readline 2.2.
720
721* set extension-language
722
723You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
724languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
725you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
726 set extension-language .c c++
727The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
728and their associated languages.
729
730* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
731
732When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
733you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
734PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
735
736 set processor NAME
737
738sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
739following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
740
741 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
742 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
743 403 IBM PowerPC 403
744 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
745 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
746 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
747 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
748 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
749 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
750 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
751 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
752
753At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
754special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
755registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
756only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
757
758* HP-UX support
759
760Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
761more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
762library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
763support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
764for xdb and dbx commands.
765
766* Catchpoints
767
768HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
769generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
770to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
771
772This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
773argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
774output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
775
776* Debugging across forks
777
778On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
779in the inferior.
780
781* TUI
782
783HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
784it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
785configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
786
787* GDB remote protocol additions
788
789A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
790Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
791fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
792allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
793
794For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
795full 64-bit address. The command
796
797 set remoteaddresssize 32
798
799can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
800the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
801will be discarded.
802
803In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
804command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
805
806 maint packet heythere
807
808sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
809disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
810time.
811
812The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
813target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
814downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
815
816* Tracing can collect general expressions
817
818You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
819further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
820doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
821
822* mask-address variable for Mips
823
824For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
825a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
826of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
827
828* Higher serial baud rates
829
830GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
831230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
832to achieve all of these rates.)
833
834* i960 simulator
835
836The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
837builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
838
839
840*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
841
842* New native configurations
843
844Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
845Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
846Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
847PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
848PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
849Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
850Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
851
852* New targets
853
854Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
855Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
856Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
857Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
858MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
859MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
860MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
861Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
862Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
863Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
864NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
865
866* New debugging protocols
867
868ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
869M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
870DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
871PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
872PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
873Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
874
875* DWARF 2
876
877All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
878format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
879information.
880
881* Java frontend
882
883GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
884only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
885
886* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
887
888For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
889loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
890locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
891
892* Live range splitting
893
894GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
895range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
896more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
897
898* Hurd support
899
900GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
901updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
902
903* ARM Thumb support
904
905GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
906instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
907instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
908accordingly.
909
910* MIPS16 support
911
912GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
913instruction set.
914
915* Overlay support
916
917GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
918linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
919will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
920control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
921additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
922in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
923
924* info symbol
925
926The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
927the symbol at the specified address.
928
929* Trace support
930
931The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
932asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
933extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
934includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
935file tracepoint.c for more details.
936
937* MIPS simulator
938
939Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
940by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
941of most MIPS variants.
942
943* Sparc simulator
944
945Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
946by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
947Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
948
949* set architecture
950
951For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
952basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
953architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
954the possible architectures.
955
956*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
957
958* New native configurations
959
960Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
961M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
962PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
963PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
964PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
965RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
966
967* New targets
968
969ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
970I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
971MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
972MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
973PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
974Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
975Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
976
977* PowerPC simulator
978
979The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
980contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
981PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
982basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
983performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
984
985* Solaris 2.5
986
987GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
988
989* Windows 95/NT native
990
991GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
992To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
993which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
994Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
995ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
996
997* dont-repeat command
998
999If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1000command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1001useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1002extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1003
1004* Send break instead of ^C
1005
1006The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1007rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1008GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1009
1010* Remote protocol timeout
1011
1012The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1013that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1014to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1015
1016* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1017
1018By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1019loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1020stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1021when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1022in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1023
1024Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1025/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1026automatically on hpux10.
1027
1028* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1029
1030Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1031
1032* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1033
1034When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1035may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1036the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1037every character. The default value is 1050.
1038
1039* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1040
1041If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1042a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1043replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1044details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1045remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1046to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1047
1048* Speedups for remote debugging
1049
1050GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1051the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1052and more efficient S-record downloading.
1053
1054* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1055
1056GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1057Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1058
1059*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1060
1061* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1062
1063The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1064can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1065
1066* Remote targets use caching
1067
1068Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1069remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1070it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1071debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1072off' turns the the data cache off.
1073
1074* Remote targets may have threads
1075
1076The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1077in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1078gdb/remote.c for details.
1079
1080* NetROM support
1081
1082If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1083support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1084acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1085write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1086support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1087another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1088sequence is something like
1089
1090 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1091 load <prog>
1092 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1093
1094* Macintosh host
1095
1096GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1097may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1098it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1099available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1100device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1101directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1102scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1103mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1104
1105* Autoconf
1106
1107GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1108but does simplify configuration and building.
1109
1110* hpux10
1111
1112GDB now supports hpux10.
1113
1114*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1115
1116* New native configurations
1117
1118x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1119x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1120NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1121Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1122
1123* New targets
1124
1125A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1126HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1127CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1128PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1129WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1130
1131* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1132
1133GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1134possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1135filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1136the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1137if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1138
1139* Arguments to user-defined commands
1140
1141User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1142Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1143trivial example:
1144define adder
1145 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1146
1147To execute the command use:
1148adder 1 2 3
1149
1150Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1151Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1152use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1153
1154* New `if' and `while' commands
1155
1156This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1157commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1158expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1159execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1160terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1161`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1162if the expression is zero.
1163
1164* Fortran source language mode
1165
1166GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1167Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1168variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1169with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1170Fortran compilers.
1171
1172* Better HPUX support
1173
1174Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1175running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1176processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1177for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1178that behavior do the following before running the program:
1179
1180 adb -w a.out
1181 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1182 control-d
1183
1184This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1185To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1186
1187 adb -w a.out
1188 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1189 control-d
1190
1191You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1192the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1193external linkage.
1194
1195GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1196HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1197
1198* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1199
1200You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1201commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1202current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1203"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1204associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1205configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1206
1207* New DOS host serial code
1208
1209This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1210no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1211a PC's serial port.
1212
1213*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1214
1215* New "complete" command
1216
1217This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1218were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1219
1220* Trailing space optional in prompt
1221
1222"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1223allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1224
1225* Breakpoint hit counts
1226
1227"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1228has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1229can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1230to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1231less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1232that breakpoint.
1233
1234* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1235
1236"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1237an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1238arrays actually contain only short strings.
1239
1240* Shared library breakpoints
1241
1242In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1243breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1244
1245* Hardware watchpoints
1246
1247There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1248targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1249
55241689 1250Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1251
1252* Annotations
1253
1254Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1255and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1256
1257* Improved Irix 5 support
1258
1259GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1260
1261* Improved HPPA support
1262
1263GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1264
1265* New native configurations
1266
1267Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1268HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1269Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1270RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1271
1272* New targets
1273
1274OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1275MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1276Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1277
1278* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1279
1280There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1281This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1282
1283* Fixes
1284
1285As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1286and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1287
1288*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1289
1290* Irix 5 is now supported
1291
1292* HPPA support
1293
1294GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1295to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1296GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1297of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1298can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1299
1300
1301*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1302
1303* User visible changes:
1304
1305* Remote Debugging
1306
1307The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1308target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1309debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1310integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1311debugging info for the mips target).
1312
1313* DEC Alpha native support
1314
1315GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1316debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1317work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1318Alpha-specific notes.
1319
1320* Preliminary thread implementation
1321
1322GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1323
1324* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1325
1326This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1327to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1328for details).
1329
1330* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1331
1332This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1333mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1334call methods, ...etc.
1335
1336*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1337
1338 * User visible changes:
1339
1340Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1341supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1342other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1343somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1344
1345Filename completion now works.
1346
1347When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1348arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1349addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1350
1351All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1352vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1353should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1354your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1355to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1356
1357 * DEC alpha support
1358
1359This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1360cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1361
1362
1363*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1364
1365 * Testsuite
1366
1367This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1368The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1369via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1370
1371 * C++ demangling
1372
1373'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1374emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1375Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1376disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1377use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1378
1379 * Simulators
1380
1381GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1382So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1383Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1384
1385 * New targets supported
1386
1387H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1388H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1389SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1390Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1391IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1392
1393Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1394version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1395GO32 memory extender.
1396
1397 * New remote protocols
1398
1399MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1400
1401 * New source languages supported
1402
1403This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1404used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1405into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1406
1407
1408*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1409
1410 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1411
1412GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1413version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1414University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1415compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1416format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1417(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1418
1419Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1420
1421 * Faster and better demangling
1422
1423We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1424demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1425character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1426only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1427This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1428increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1429symbol lookups.
1430
1431`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1432from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1433compiler does not actually implement.
1434
1435 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1436
1437In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1438inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1439recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1440very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1441The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1442circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1443fix.
1444
1445The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1446release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1447
1448 * Improved configure script
1449
1450The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1451you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1452host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1453done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1454
1455We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1456version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1457`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1458The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1459only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1460We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1461
1462 * Documentation improvements
1463
1464There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1465produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1466before submitting changes.
1467
1468The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1469M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1470`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1471you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1472a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1473
1474*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1475We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1476been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1477or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1478`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1479around this problem.
1480
1481 * New features
1482
1483GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1484the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1485`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1486the target program.
1487
1488The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1489how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1490
1491 * New native hosts supported
1492
1493HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1494386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1495
1496 * New targets supported
1497
1498AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1499
1500 * New file formats supported
1501
1502BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1503HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1504
1505 * Major bug fixes
1506
1507Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1508
1509We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1510printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1511
1512We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1513for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1514release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1515
1516You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1517will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1518
1519We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1520for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1521especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1522libraries.
1523
1524The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1525information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1526command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1527any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1528when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1529
1530 * Internal improvements
1531
1532GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1533debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1534
1535GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1536Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1537symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1538contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1539shared code that handles any of them.
1540
1541 * New command line options
1542
1543We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1544
1545 * Mmalloc licensing
1546
1547The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1548General Public License.
1549
1550*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1551
1552 * Host/native/target split
1553
1554GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1555hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1556target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1557local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1558ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1559
1560The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1561GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1562is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1563code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1564any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1565built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1566handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1567
1568GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1569It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1570plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1571
1572 * New hosts supported
1573
1574HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1575386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1576386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1577
1578 * New targets supported
1579
1580Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
158168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1582
1583 * New native hosts supported
1584
1585386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1586 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1587386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1588
1589 * New file formats supported
1590
1591BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1592supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1593format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1594
1595 * New commands
1596
1597`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1598`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1599These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1600
1601`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1602
1603You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1604scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1605prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1606executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1607
1608 * C++ improvements
1609
1610We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1611info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1612symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1613
1614Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1615
1616 * Major bug fixes
1617
1618The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1619fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1620by the compiler.
1621
1622We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1623support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1624
1625John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1626slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1627that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1628purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1629the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1630mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1631
1632Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1633about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1634completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1635we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1636
1637 * AMD 29k support
1638
1639A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1640specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1641calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1642usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1643in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1644
1645We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1646Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1647of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1648resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1649
1650 * Remote interfaces
1651
1652We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1653with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1654message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1655This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1656needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1657breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1658each instruction being stepped through.
1659
1660The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1661registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1662
1663There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1664find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1665Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1666processor with a serial port.
1667
1668 * Configuration
1669
1670Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1671`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1672supported, and what files each one uses.
1673
1674 * Library changes
1675
1676There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1677disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1678Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1679disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1680
1681The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1682Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1683can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1684grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1685
1686 * Documentation
1687
1688The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1689reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1690as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1691encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1692system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1693bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1694
1695And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1696
1697
1698*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1699
1700 * Better support for C++ function names
1701
1702GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1703names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1704(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1705single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1706Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1707
1708GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1709the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1710You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1711lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1712for the list of formats.
1713
1714 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1715
1716Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1717C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1718directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1719can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1720usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1721about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1722this problem.)
1723
1724 * New 'maintenance' command
1725
1726All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1727the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1728can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1729
1730 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1731 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1732 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1733 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1734 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1735 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1736
1737The following commands are new:
1738
1739 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1740 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1741 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1742
1743 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1744
1745We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1746(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1747be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1748read after argv processing.
1749
1750 * New hosts supported
1751
1752Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1753
55241689 1754GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1755
1756We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1757is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1758for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1759masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1760fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1761It costs extra.
1762
1763 * New targets supported
1764
1765Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1766
1767 * More smarts about finding #include files
1768
1769GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1770all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1771greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1772especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1773the one that contains your sources.
1774
1775We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1776breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1777try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1778
1779 * Interesting infernals change
1780
1781GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1782section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1783target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1784stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1785
1786 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1787
1788There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1789 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1790 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1791
1792See the ChangeLog for details.
1793
1794*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1795
1796 * New machines supported (host and target)
1797
1798IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1799
1800SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1801
1802 * New malloc package
1803
1804GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1805Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1806capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1807This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1808pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1809more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1810
1811 * info proc
1812
1813The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1814'help info proc' for details.
1815
1816 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1817
1818The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1819Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1820possible.
1821
1822 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1823
1824Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1825support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1826conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1827environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1828that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1829in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1830
1831 * Cross byte order fixes
1832
1833Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1834targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1835
1836 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1837
1838If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1839system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1840`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1841program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1842called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1843Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1844and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1845the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1846option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1847starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1848
1849You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1850the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1851information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1852slower, but makes future operations faster.
1853
1854The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1855build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1856A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1857use is:
1858
1859 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1860
1861The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1862It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1863shared across multiple host platforms.
1864
1865 * longjmp() handling
1866
1867GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1868siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1869all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1870platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1871
1872 * Solaris 2.0
1873
1874Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1875this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1876reading symbols.
1877
1878 * Bug fixes
1879
1880As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1881People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1882crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1883
1884*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1885
1886 * New machines supported (host and target)
1887
1888SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1889 (except core files)
1890BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1891Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1892
1893 * New machines supported (target)
1894
1895AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1896
1897 * C++ support
1898
1899GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1900The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1901per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1902
1903GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1904`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1905extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1906good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1907will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1908released.
1909
1910 * New features for SVR4
1911
1912GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1913shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1914only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1915
1916The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1917on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1918it prints the address mappings of the process.
1919
1920If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1921bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1922
1923 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1924
1925Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1926now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1927skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1928make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1929same code linked statically.
1930
1931 * New Getopt
1932
1933GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1934version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1935continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1936Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1937added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1938future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1939
1940 * Bugs fixed
1941
1942The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1943Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1944See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1945
1946
1947*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1948
1949 * New machines supported (host and target)
1950
1951Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1952NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1953Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1954
1955 * Almost SCO Unix support
1956
1957We had hoped to support:
1958SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1959(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1960that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1961about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1962
1963 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1964
1965GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1966debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1967is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1968send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1969reqired (if any).
1970
1971 * New Readline
1972
1973GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1974is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1975required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1976
1977 * Bugs fixed
1978
1979The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1980Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1981See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1982
1983 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1984
1985GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1986supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1987symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1988
1989Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1990mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1991debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1992mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1993version 2.
1994
1995Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1996really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1997line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1998variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1999situation somewhat.
2000
2001When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2002However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2003methods.
2004
2005We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2006DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2007encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2008
2009
2010*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2011
2012 * Improved configuration
2013
2014Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2015Porting BFD is simpler.
2016
2017 * Stepping improved
2018
2019The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2020of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2021in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2022function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2023
2024 * Bug fixing
2025
2026Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2027
2028 * New host supported (not target)
2029
2030Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2031
2032
2033*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2034
2035 * Multiple source language support
2036
2037GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2038It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2039and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2040language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2041You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2042`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2043
2044 * GDB and Modula-2
2045
2046GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2047currently under development at the State University of New York at
2048Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2049continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2050
2051Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2052debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2053symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2054
2055There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2056in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2057
2058 * set write on/off
2059
2060GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2061a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2062the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2063by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2064effect immediately.
2065
2066 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2067
2068When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2069shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2070The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2071examining core files.
2072
2073 * set listsize
2074
2075You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2076The default is 10.
2077
2078 * New machines supported (host and target)
2079
2080SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2081Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2082Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2083
2084 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2085
2086IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2087
2088 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2089
2090AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2091AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2092Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2093
2094 * New remote interfaces
2095
2096AMD 29000 Adapt
2097AMD 29000 Minimon
2098
2099
2100*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2101
2102 * New Facilities
2103
2104Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2105
2106Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2107target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2108is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2109remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2110remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2111also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2112using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2113stub on the target system.
2114
2115New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2116
2117GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2118library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2119object file types such as a.out and coff.
2120
2121There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2122refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2123
2124
2125 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2126
2127All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2128by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2129
2130For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2131``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2132Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2133
2134What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2135print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2136will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2137all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2138
2139confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2140 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2141 it is already running. Default is ON.
2142
2143editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2144 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2145 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2146 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2147 Default is ON.
2148
2149history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2150 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2151 or the value of the environment variable
2152 GDBHISTFILE.
2153
2154history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2155 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2156 HISTSIZE.
2157
2158history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2159 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2160 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2161
2162history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2163 history expansion will be performed on
2164 command line input. The default is OFF.
2165
2166radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2167 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2168 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2169
2170height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2171 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2172 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2173 variable TERM.
2174
2175width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2176 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2177 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2178 variable TERM.
2179
2180Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2181``set width'' instead.
2182
2183print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2184 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2185 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2186 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2187
2188print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2189 is OFF.
2190
2191print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2192 "raw" form if off.
2193
2194print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2195 like instructions.
2196
2197print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2198
2199
2200 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2201
2202The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2203new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2204are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2205window.
2206
2207
2208 * Support for Shared Libraries
2209
2210GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2211Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2212before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2213happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2214At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2215from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2216shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2217It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2218
2219sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2220 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2221 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2222
2223info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2224
2225
2226 * Watchpoints
2227
2228A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2229expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2230tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2231quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2232problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2233more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2234
2235watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2236
2237info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2238
2239delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2240disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2241enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2242
2243
2244 * C++ multiple inheritance
2245
2246When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2247for C++ programs.
2248
2249 * C++ exception handling
2250
2251Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2252ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2253the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2254handler's context).
2255
2256catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2257 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2258 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2259
2260info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2261 current stack frame.
2262
2263
2264 * Minor command changes
2265
2266The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2267command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2268is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2269
2270The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2271at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2272frames without printing.
2273
2274 * New directory command
2275
2276'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2277The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2278about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2279with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2280find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2281
2282 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2283
2284For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2285for more details.
2286
2287GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2288two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2289Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2290where the program that you are debugging will run.
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