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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.4
5
6* New commands
7
8init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
9 only if it doesn't already have a value.
10
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11The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
12
13checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
14
15restart <n> Return the program state to a
16 previously saved state.
17
18info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
19
20delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
21
22set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
23 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
24
25info forks List forks of the user program that
26 are available to be debugged.
27
28fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
29 forks of the user program that are
30 available to be debugged.
31
32delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
33 that are available to be debugged (and
34 kill the forked process).
35
36detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
37 that are available to be debugged (and
38 allow the process to continue).
39
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40* New architecture
41
42Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
43
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44* Improved Windows host support
45
46GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
47native console support, and remote communications using either
48network sockets or serial ports.
49
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50* REMOVED features
51
52The ARM rdi-share module.
53
53e5f3cf 54*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 55
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56* New native configurations
57
02a677ac 58OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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59OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
60
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61* New targets
62
63Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
64
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65* New command line options
66
67--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
68--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
69 the child (debugged) program exited with.
70--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
71 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
72 specified multiple times and in conjunction
73 with the --command (-x) option.
74
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75* Deprecated commands removed
76
77The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
78removed:
79
80 Command Replacement
81 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
82 othernames set arm disassembler
83 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
84 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
85 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
86 regs info registers
87
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88* New BSD user-level threads support
89
90It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
91library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
92configurations are:
93
94FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
95FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
96OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
97
98Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
99are not yet supported.
100
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101* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
102(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
103
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104* REMOVED configurations and files
105
106VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 107Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 108National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 109
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110* New "set print array-indexes" command
111
112After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
113when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
114behavior.
115
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116* VAX floating point support
117
118GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
119
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120* User-defined command support
121
122In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
123to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
124section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
125
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126*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
127
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128* New command line option
129
130GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
131debugging.
132
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133* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
134
135GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
136information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
137by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
138proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
139to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 140
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141* Internationalization
142
143When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
144internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
145continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
146
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147* Ada
148
149Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
150implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
151into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
152
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153* New native configurations
154
155GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
156
157* Remote 'p' packet
158
159GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
160packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
161
162* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
163
164GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
165The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
166features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
167i386 application).
168
169GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
170compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
171continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
172configurations:
173
174hppa-*-hpux
175ia64-*-aix
176mips-*-irix*
177*-*-lynx
178mips-*-linux-gnu
179sds protocol
180xdr protocol
181powerpc bdm protocol
182
183Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
184made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
185
186* OBSOLETE configurations and files
187
188Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
189been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
190configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
191permanently REMOVED.
192
193h8300-*-*
194mcore-*-*
195mn10300-*-*
196ns32k-*-*
197sh64-*-*
198v850-*-*
199
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200*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
201
202* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
203
204When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
205heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
206been fixed.
207
208* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
209
210When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
211fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
212IRIX long double values).
213
214* VAX and "next"
215
216A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
217command. This problem has been fixed.
218
860660cb 219*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 220
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221* Fix for ``many threads''
222
223On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
224rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
225error message:
226
227 ptrace: No such process.
228 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
229
230This problem has been fixed.
231
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232* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
233
234Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
235GDB to dump core).
236
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237* New ``start'' command.
238
239This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
240
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241* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
242
243Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
244live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
245platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
246
247FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
248FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
249NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
250NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
251NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
252OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
253OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
254OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
255OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
256
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257* Signal trampoline code overhauled
258
259Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
260These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
261of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
262call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
263signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
264
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265Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
266features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
267include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 268
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269* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
270
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271* New native configurations
272
97dc871c 273GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 274OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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275OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
276OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 277OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 278NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 279OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 280
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281* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
282
283GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
284The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
285including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
286migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
287compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
288work, was also included.
289
290GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
291module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
292
293h8300-*-*
294mcore-*-*
295mn10300-*-*
296ns32k-*-*
297sh64-*-*
298v850-*-*
299xstormy16-*-*
300
301Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
302made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
303
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304* REMOVED configurations and files
305
306Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
307Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
308Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
309Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
310Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
311AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
312Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
313decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
314riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
315sonymips mips-sony-*
316sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
317
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318*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
319
320* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
321
322The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
323GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
324command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
325program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
326with GDB".
327
328* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
329
330Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
331libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
332cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
333GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
334shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
335the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
336are created.
337
338Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
339
340* Fixed ISO-C build problems
341
342The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
343non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
344compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
345
346* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
347
348Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
349wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
350
351* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
352
353The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
354permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
355systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
356
357* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
358
359Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
360has been updated to use constant array sizes.
361
362* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
363
364GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
365its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
366panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
367
368* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
369
370When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
371by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
372not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
373
faae5abe 374*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 375
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376* Removed --with-mmalloc
377
378Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
379conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
380
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381* Changes in AMD64 configurations
382
383The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
384the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
385and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
386you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
387
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388* Revised SPARC target
389
390The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
391FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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392support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
393from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
394(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 395
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396* New C++ demangler
397
398GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
399names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
400with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
401programs.
402
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403* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
404
405GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
406arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
407encountered these.
408
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409* C++ nested types and namespaces
410
411GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
412improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
413is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
414Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
415namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
416"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
417frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
418if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
419GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
420
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421* New native configurations
422
423NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 424OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 425OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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426OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
427OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 428
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429* New debugging protocols
430
431M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
432
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433* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
434
435The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
436and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
437tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
438
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439* OBSOLETE configurations and files
440
441Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
442been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
443configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
444permanently REMOVED.
445
446Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
447Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
448Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
449Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
450Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
451AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
452Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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453decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
454riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
455sonymips mips-sony-*
456sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 457
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458* REMOVED configurations and files
459
460SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
461SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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462Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
463Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
464H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
465HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
466HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
467HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
468PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 469386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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470Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
471 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
472 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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473SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
474SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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475Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
476Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 477
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478*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
479
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480* Objective-C
481
482Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
483integrated into GDB.
484
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485* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
486
487DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
488information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
489By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
490backtraces.
491
492The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
493have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
494DWARF 2 CFI support.
495
496* Hosted file I/O.
497
498GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
499file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
500remote protocol documentation for details.
501
502* All targets using the new architecture framework.
503
504All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
505architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
506to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
507ppc32 on ppc64).
508
509* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
510
511GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
512per-thread variables.
513
514* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
515
516GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
517GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
518
519* Separate debug info.
520
521GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
522automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
523of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
524system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
525and optional debug files.
526
527* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
528
529DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
530describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
531debugger.
532
533GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
534for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
535
536* Java
537
538A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
539Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
540considered "useable".
541
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542* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
543
544The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
545commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
546kernel.
547
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548* GDB supports logging output to a file
549
550There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
551used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 552
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553* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
554
555The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
556disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
557command.
558
e286caf2 559* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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560
561The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
562registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
563
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564* Profiling support
565
566A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
567be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
568session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
569"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
570data, for more informative profiling results.
571
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572* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
573
574The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
575option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 576"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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577
578Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
579removed.
580
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581Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
582Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
583Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
584 in a subsequent -var-update.
585
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586* New native configurations.
587
588FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
589
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590* Multi-arched targets.
591
b4263afa 592HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 593Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 594
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595* OBSOLETE configurations and files
596
597Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
598been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
599configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
600permanently REMOVED.
601
8b0e5691 602Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 603Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 604H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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605HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
606HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
607HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 608PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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609Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
610 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
611 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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612Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
613Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 614
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615* REMOVED configurations and files
616
617V850EA ISA
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618Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
619IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
620i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
621i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
622i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
623HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
624 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
625 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
626Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
627Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
628Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
629OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
630I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 631
a094c6fb
AC
632* MIPS $fp behavior changed
633
634The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
635the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
636context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
637address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
638The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
639
299ffc64 640*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 641
46248966
AC
642* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
643
644When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
645`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
646in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
647library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
648shared libs like mad''.
649
b9d14705 650* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 651
b9d14705
DJ
652Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
653the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
654arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
655powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 656
e0e9281e
JB
657* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
658
659GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
660and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
661they expand.
662
dd73b9bb
AC
663The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
664invocations in expression, and shows the result.
665
666The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
667macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
668
e0e9281e
JB
669Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
670information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
671your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
672information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
673
2250ee0c
CV
674* Multi-arched targets.
675
6e3ba3b8
JT
676DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
677DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 678NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 679National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
680Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
681Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 682
cd9bfe15 683* New targets.
e33ce519 684
456f8b9d
DB
685Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
686
e33ce519 687
da8ca43d
JT
688* New native configurations
689
690Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 691SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 692MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 693UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 694
cd9bfe15
AC
695* OBSOLETE configurations and files
696
697Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
698been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
699configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
700permanently REMOVED.
701
92eb23c5 702Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 703OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 704IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 705Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 706Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 707Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
708i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
709i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
710i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
711HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
712 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
713 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 714I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 715
db034ac5
AC
716* OBSOLETE languages
717
718CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
719
cd9bfe15
AC
720* REMOVED configurations and files
721
722AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
723A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
724AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
725AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
726AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
727
728testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
729
20f01a46
DH
730* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
731
732This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
733commands. The default is 1024.
734
a5941fbf
MK
735* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
736
737Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
738
89743e04
MS
739* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
740
741These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
742to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
743from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 744
9fb14e79
JB
745* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
746
747The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
748including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
749of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
750
2037aebb
AC
751*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
752
753* New targets.
754
755Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
756
757* Bug fixes
758
759gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
760mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
761Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
762
763gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
764dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
765Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
766
767Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
768Surprisingly enough, it works now.
769By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
770
771i386 hardware watchpoint support:
772avoid misses on second run for some targets.
773By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
774
37057839 775*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 776
1a703748
MS
777* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
778
779This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
780really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
781In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
782target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
783This can be a significant performance improvement on some
784(notably embedded) targets.
785
cefd4ef5
MS
786* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
787
55241689
AC
788This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
789process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
790GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
791hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 792
352ed7b4
MS
793* New command line option
794
795GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
796
797* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
798
799There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
800command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
801a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
802be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
803open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
804issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
805a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
806it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
807GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
808is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
809
fe419ffc
RE
810* Changes in ARM configurations.
811
812Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
813configuration is fully multi-arch.
814
eb7cedd9
MK
815* New native configurations
816
fe419ffc 817ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 818x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 819AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 820Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 821
c9f63e6b
CV
822* New targets
823
824Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
825
9b4ff276
AC
826* OBSOLETE configurations and files
827
828Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
829been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
830configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
831permanently REMOVED.
832
833AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
834A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
835AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
836AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
837AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
838
b4ceaee6 839testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 840
e2caac18
AC
841* REMOVED configurations and files
842
843TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 844WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
845PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
846PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
847PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 848Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
849Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
850 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 851SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 852Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
853Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
854ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 855Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 856
c2a727fa
TT
857* Changes to command line processing
858
859The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
860for the inferior from gdb's command line.
861
467d8519
TT
862* Changes to key bindings
863
864There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
865
7072a954
AC
866*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
867
868Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
869
870Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
871corrupted.
872
873Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
874
875Numerous documentation fixes.
876
877Numerous testsuite fixes.
878
34f47bc4 879*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
880
881* New native configurations
882
883Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
884x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 885MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
886MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
887ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 888s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 889
bf64bfd6
AC
890* New targets
891
def90278 892Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 893CRIS cris-axis
55241689 894UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 895
17e78a56 896* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
897
898x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 899Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
900Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
901 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
902TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
903WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 904Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
905PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
906PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
907PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 908SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
909Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
910ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 911Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 912
17e78a56
AC
913stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
914kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
915
7fcca85b
AC
916Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
917been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
918configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
919permanently REMOVED.
920
a196c81c 921* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
922
923Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
924Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
925Pyramid pyramid-*-*
926ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
927Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 928ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 929
6d6b80e5 930* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 931
6d6b80e5 932GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
933sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
934present.
935
bf64bfd6
AC
936* Other news:
937
e23194cb
EZ
938* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
939
940* The MI enabled by default.
941
942The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
943revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
944engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
945using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
946which is now deprecated.
947
948* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
949
950GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
951main features are supported:
952
953 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
954
955 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
956 extension;
957
958 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
959
960 - a Pascal expression parser.
961
962However, some important features are not yet supported.
963
964 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
965
966 - there are some problems with boolean types;
967
968 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
969 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
970
971 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
972
973 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
974
975* Changes in completion.
976
977Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
978to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
979users expect at the shell prompt.
980
981Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
982`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
983program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
984files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
985be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
986considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
987name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
988
989`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
990
991* New platform-independent commands:
992
993It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
994hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
995documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
996
997* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
998
d7275149
MK
999Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1000revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1001many threads as your system allows you to have.
1002
e23194cb
EZ
1003Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1004
d7275149
MK
1005Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1006multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1007
1008* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1009
1010Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1011
e23194cb
EZ
1012GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1013debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1014supported.)
1015
1016* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1017
1018Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1019breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1020implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1021put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1022and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1023registers.
1024
1025The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1026debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1027watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1028
1029* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1030
1031New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1032the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1033
1034New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1035display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1036IDT.
1037
1038New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1039from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1040New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1041a given linear address.
1042
1043GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1044program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1045which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1046
1047DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1048
6c56c069
EZ
1049It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1050
e23194cb
EZ
1051* Changes in documentation.
1052
1053All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1054Documentation License.
1055
1056Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1057manual.
1058
1059TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1060
1061Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1062manual.
1063
1064The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1065documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1066hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1067
5d6640b1
AC
1068* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1069
1070The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1071``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1072contents of this file.
1073
1a1d8446
AC
1074* gdba.el deleted
1075
1076GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1077
9debab2f 1078*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1079
c63ce875
EZ
1080* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1081
1082Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1083programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1084displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1085greater level of detail.
1086
1087* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1088
1089It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1090bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1091on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1092written.
1093
1094* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1095
1096The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1097necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1098machines ``out of the box''.
1099
1100The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1101possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1102signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1103would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1104interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1105
1106It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1107standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1108even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1109and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1110terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1111
1112The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1113enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1114also works.
1115
1116DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1117GDB.
1118
1119It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1120directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1121times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1122breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1123
ed9a39eb
JM
1124* New native configurations
1125
1126ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1127PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1128
7a292a7a
SS
1129* New targets
1130
96baa820 1131Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1132x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1133PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1134TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1135
085dd6e6
JM
1136* OBSOLETE configurations
1137
1138Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1139Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1140Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1141ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1142Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1143
9debab2f
AC
1144Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1145but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1146these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1147be permanently REMOVED.
1148
5330533d
SS
1149* Gould support removed
1150
1151Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1152
bc9e5bbf
AC
1153* New features for SVR4
1154
1155On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1156without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1157load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1158
1159* Many C++ enhancements
1160
1161C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1162in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1163
adf40b2e
JM
1164* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1165
1166A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1167sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1168with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1169``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1170
1171 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1172 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1173
43e526b9
JM
1174* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1175
1176A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1177expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1178instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1179
1180The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1181added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1182
96baa820
JM
1183* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1184
1185The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1186``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1187include ``set remote P-packet''.
1188
11cf8741
JM
1189* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1190
1191The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1192accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1193``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1194
7876dd43
DB
1195* ``apropos'' command added.
1196
1197The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1198documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1199try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1200
bc9e5bbf
AC
1201* New MI interface
1202
1203A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1204interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1205process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1206"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1207enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1208
1209 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1210
c906108c
SS
1211*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1212
1213* New native configurations
1214
1215HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1216HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1217M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1218
1219* New targets
1220
1221Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1222Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1223Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1224
1225* OBSOLETE configurations
1226
1227Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1228
1229Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1230but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1231these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1232be permanently REMOVED.
1233
1234* ANSI/ISO C
1235
1236As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1237buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1238containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1239use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1240available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1241configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1242information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1243already.
1244
1245* Readline 2.2
1246
1247GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1248
1249* set extension-language
1250
1251You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1252languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1253you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1254 set extension-language .c c++
1255The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1256and their associated languages.
1257
1258* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1259
1260When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1261you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1262PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1263
1264 set processor NAME
1265
1266sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1267following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1268
1269 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1270 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1271 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1272 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1273 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1274 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1275 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1276 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1277 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1278 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1279 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1280
1281At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1282special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1283registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1284only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1285
1286* HP-UX support
1287
1288Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1289more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1290library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1291support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1292for xdb and dbx commands.
1293
1294* Catchpoints
1295
1296HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1297generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1298to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1299
1300This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1301argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1302output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1303
1304* Debugging across forks
1305
1306On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1307in the inferior.
1308
1309* TUI
1310
1311HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1312it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1313configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1314
1315* GDB remote protocol additions
1316
1317A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1318Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1319fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1320allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1321
1322For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1323full 64-bit address. The command
1324
1325 set remoteaddresssize 32
1326
1327can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1328the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1329will be discarded.
1330
1331In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1332command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1333
1334 maint packet heythere
1335
1336sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1337disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1338time.
1339
1340The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1341target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1342downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1343
1344* Tracing can collect general expressions
1345
1346You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1347further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1348doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1349
1350* mask-address variable for Mips
1351
1352For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1353a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1354of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1355
1356* Higher serial baud rates
1357
1358GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1359230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1360to achieve all of these rates.)
1361
1362* i960 simulator
1363
1364The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1365builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1366
1367
1368*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1369
1370* New native configurations
1371
1372Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1373Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1374Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1375PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1376PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1377Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1378Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1379
1380* New targets
1381
1382Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1383Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1384Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1385Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1386MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1387MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1388MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1389Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1390Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1391Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1392NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1393
1394* New debugging protocols
1395
1396ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1397M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1398DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1399PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1400PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1401Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1402
1403* DWARF 2
1404
1405All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1406format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1407information.
1408
1409* Java frontend
1410
1411GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1412only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1413
1414* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1415
1416For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1417loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1418locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1419
1420* Live range splitting
1421
1422GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1423range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1424more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1425
1426* Hurd support
1427
1428GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1429updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1430
1431* ARM Thumb support
1432
1433GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1434instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1435instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1436accordingly.
1437
1438* MIPS16 support
1439
1440GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1441instruction set.
1442
1443* Overlay support
1444
1445GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1446linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1447will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1448control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1449additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1450in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1451
1452* info symbol
1453
1454The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1455the symbol at the specified address.
1456
1457* Trace support
1458
1459The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1460asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1461extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1462includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1463file tracepoint.c for more details.
1464
1465* MIPS simulator
1466
1467Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1468by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1469of most MIPS variants.
1470
1471* Sparc simulator
1472
1473Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1474by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1475Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1476
1477* set architecture
1478
1479For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1480basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1481architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1482the possible architectures.
1483
1484*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1485
1486* New native configurations
1487
1488Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1489M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1490PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1491PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1492PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1493RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1494
1495* New targets
1496
1497ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1498I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1499MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1500MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1501PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1502Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1503Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1504
1505* PowerPC simulator
1506
1507The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1508contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1509PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1510basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1511performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1512
1513* Solaris 2.5
1514
1515GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1516
1517* Windows 95/NT native
1518
1519GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1520To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1521which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1522Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1523ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1524
1525* dont-repeat command
1526
1527If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1528command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1529useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1530extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1531
1532* Send break instead of ^C
1533
1534The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1535rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1536GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1537
1538* Remote protocol timeout
1539
1540The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1541that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1542to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1543
1544* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1545
1546By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1547loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1548stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1549when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1550in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1551
1552Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1553/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1554automatically on hpux10.
1555
1556* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1557
1558Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1559
1560* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1561
1562When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1563may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1564the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1565every character. The default value is 1050.
1566
1567* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1568
1569If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1570a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1571replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1572details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1573remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1574to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1575
1576* Speedups for remote debugging
1577
1578GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1579the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1580and more efficient S-record downloading.
1581
1582* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1583
1584GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1585Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1586
1587*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1588
1589* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1590
1591The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1592can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1593
1594* Remote targets use caching
1595
1596Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1597remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1598it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1599debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1600off' turns the the data cache off.
1601
1602* Remote targets may have threads
1603
1604The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1605in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1606gdb/remote.c for details.
1607
1608* NetROM support
1609
1610If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1611support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1612acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1613write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1614support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1615another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1616sequence is something like
1617
1618 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1619 load <prog>
1620 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1621
1622* Macintosh host
1623
1624GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1625may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1626it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1627available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1628device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1629directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1630scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1631mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1632
1633* Autoconf
1634
1635GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1636but does simplify configuration and building.
1637
1638* hpux10
1639
1640GDB now supports hpux10.
1641
1642*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1643
1644* New native configurations
1645
1646x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1647x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1648NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1649Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1650
1651* New targets
1652
1653A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1654HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1655CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1656PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1657WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1658
1659* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1660
1661GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1662possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1663filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1664the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1665if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1666
1667* Arguments to user-defined commands
1668
1669User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1670Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1671trivial example:
1672define adder
1673 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1674
1675To execute the command use:
1676adder 1 2 3
1677
1678Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1679Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1680use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1681
1682* New `if' and `while' commands
1683
1684This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1685commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1686expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1687execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1688terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1689`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1690if the expression is zero.
1691
1692* Fortran source language mode
1693
1694GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1695Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1696variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1697with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1698Fortran compilers.
1699
1700* Better HPUX support
1701
1702Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1703running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1704processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1705for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1706that behavior do the following before running the program:
1707
1708 adb -w a.out
1709 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1710 control-d
1711
1712This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1713To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1714
1715 adb -w a.out
1716 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1717 control-d
1718
1719You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1720the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1721external linkage.
1722
1723GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1724HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1725
1726* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1727
1728You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1729commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1730current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1731"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1732associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1733configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1734
1735* New DOS host serial code
1736
1737This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1738no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1739a PC's serial port.
1740
1741*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1742
1743* New "complete" command
1744
1745This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1746were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1747
1748* Trailing space optional in prompt
1749
1750"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1751allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1752
1753* Breakpoint hit counts
1754
1755"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1756has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1757can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1758to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1759less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1760that breakpoint.
1761
1762* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1763
1764"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1765an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1766arrays actually contain only short strings.
1767
1768* Shared library breakpoints
1769
1770In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1771breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1772
1773* Hardware watchpoints
1774
1775There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1776targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1777
55241689 1778Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1779
1780* Annotations
1781
1782Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1783and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1784
1785* Improved Irix 5 support
1786
1787GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1788
1789* Improved HPPA support
1790
1791GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1792
1793* New native configurations
1794
1795Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1796HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1797Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1798RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1799
1800* New targets
1801
1802OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1803MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1804Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1805
1806* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1807
1808There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1809This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1810
1811* Fixes
1812
1813As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1814and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1815
1816*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1817
1818* Irix 5 is now supported
1819
1820* HPPA support
1821
1822GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1823to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1824GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1825of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1826can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1827
1828
1829*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1830
1831* User visible changes:
1832
1833* Remote Debugging
1834
1835The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1836target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1837debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1838integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1839debugging info for the mips target).
1840
1841* DEC Alpha native support
1842
1843GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1844debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1845work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1846Alpha-specific notes.
1847
1848* Preliminary thread implementation
1849
1850GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1851
1852* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1853
1854This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1855to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1856for details).
1857
1858* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1859
1860This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1861mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1862call methods, ...etc.
1863
1864*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1865
1866 * User visible changes:
1867
1868Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1869supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1870other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1871somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1872
1873Filename completion now works.
1874
1875When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1876arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1877addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1878
1879All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1880vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1881should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1882your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1883to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1884
1885 * DEC alpha support
1886
1887This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1888cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1889
1890
1891*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1892
1893 * Testsuite
1894
1895This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1896The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1897via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1898
1899 * C++ demangling
1900
1901'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1902emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1903Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1904disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1905use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1906
1907 * Simulators
1908
1909GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1910So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1911Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1912
1913 * New targets supported
1914
1915H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1916H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1917SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1918Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1919IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1920
1921Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1922version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1923GO32 memory extender.
1924
1925 * New remote protocols
1926
1927MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1928
1929 * New source languages supported
1930
1931This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1932used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1933into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1934
1935
1936*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1937
1938 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1939
1940GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1941version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1942University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1943compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1944format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1945(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1946
1947Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1948
1949 * Faster and better demangling
1950
1951We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1952demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1953character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1954only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1955This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1956increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1957symbol lookups.
1958
1959`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1960from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1961compiler does not actually implement.
1962
1963 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1964
1965In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1966inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1967recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1968very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1969The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1970circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1971fix.
1972
1973The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1974release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1975
1976 * Improved configure script
1977
1978The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1979you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1980host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1981done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1982
1983We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1984version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1985`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1986The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1987only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1988We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1989
1990 * Documentation improvements
1991
1992There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1993produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1994before submitting changes.
1995
1996The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1997M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1998`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1999you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2000a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2001
2002*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2003We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2004been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2005or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2006`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2007around this problem.
2008
2009 * New features
2010
2011GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2012the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2013`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2014the target program.
2015
2016The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2017how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2018
2019 * New native hosts supported
2020
2021HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2022386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2023
2024 * New targets supported
2025
2026AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2027
2028 * New file formats supported
2029
2030BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2031HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2032
2033 * Major bug fixes
2034
2035Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2036
2037We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2038printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2039
2040We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2041for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2042release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2043
2044You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2045will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2046
2047We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2048for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2049especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2050libraries.
2051
2052The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2053information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2054command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2055any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2056when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2057
2058 * Internal improvements
2059
2060GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2061debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2062
2063GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2064Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2065symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2066contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2067shared code that handles any of them.
2068
2069 * New command line options
2070
2071We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2072
2073 * Mmalloc licensing
2074
2075The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2076General Public License.
2077
2078*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2079
2080 * Host/native/target split
2081
2082GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2083hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2084target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2085local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2086ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2087
2088The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2089GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2090is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2091code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2092any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2093built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2094handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2095
2096GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2097It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2098plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2099
2100 * New hosts supported
2101
2102HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2103386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2104386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2105
2106 * New targets supported
2107
2108Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
210968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2110
2111 * New native hosts supported
2112
2113386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2114 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2115386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2116
2117 * New file formats supported
2118
2119BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2120supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2121format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2122
2123 * New commands
2124
2125`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2126`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2127These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2128
2129`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2130
2131You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2132scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2133prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2134executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2135
2136 * C++ improvements
2137
2138We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2139info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2140symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2141
2142Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2143
2144 * Major bug fixes
2145
2146The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2147fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2148by the compiler.
2149
2150We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2151support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2152
2153John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2154slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2155that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2156purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2157the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2158mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2159
2160Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2161about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2162completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2163we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2164
2165 * AMD 29k support
2166
2167A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2168specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2169calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2170usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2171in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2172
2173We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2174Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2175of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2176resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2177
2178 * Remote interfaces
2179
2180We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2181with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2182message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2183This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2184needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2185breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2186each instruction being stepped through.
2187
2188The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2189registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2190
2191There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2192find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2193Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2194processor with a serial port.
2195
2196 * Configuration
2197
2198Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2199`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2200supported, and what files each one uses.
2201
2202 * Library changes
2203
2204There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2205disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2206Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2207disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2208
2209The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2210Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2211can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2212grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2213
2214 * Documentation
2215
2216The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2217reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2218as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2219encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2220system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2221bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2222
2223And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2224
2225
2226*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2227
2228 * Better support for C++ function names
2229
2230GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2231names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2232(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2233single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2234Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2235
2236GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2237the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2238You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2239lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2240for the list of formats.
2241
2242 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2243
2244Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2245C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2246directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2247can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2248usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2249about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2250this problem.)
2251
2252 * New 'maintenance' command
2253
2254All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2255the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2256can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2257
2258 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2259 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2260 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2261 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2262 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2263 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2264
2265The following commands are new:
2266
2267 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2268 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2269 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2270
2271 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2272
2273We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2274(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2275be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2276read after argv processing.
2277
2278 * New hosts supported
2279
2280Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2281
55241689 2282GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2283
2284We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2285is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2286for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2287masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2288fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2289It costs extra.
2290
2291 * New targets supported
2292
2293Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2294
2295 * More smarts about finding #include files
2296
2297GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2298all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2299greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2300especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2301the one that contains your sources.
2302
2303We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2304breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2305try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2306
2307 * Interesting infernals change
2308
2309GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2310section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2311target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2312stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2313
2314 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2315
2316There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2317 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2318 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2319
2320See the ChangeLog for details.
2321
2322*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2323
2324 * New machines supported (host and target)
2325
2326IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2327
2328SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2329
2330 * New malloc package
2331
2332GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2333Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2334capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2335This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2336pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2337more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2338
2339 * info proc
2340
2341The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2342'help info proc' for details.
2343
2344 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2345
2346The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2347Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2348possible.
2349
2350 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2351
2352Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2353support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2354conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2355environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2356that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2357in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2358
2359 * Cross byte order fixes
2360
2361Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2362targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2363
2364 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2365
2366If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2367system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2368`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2369program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2370called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2371Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2372and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2373the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2374option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2375starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2376
2377You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2378the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2379information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2380slower, but makes future operations faster.
2381
2382The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2383build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2384A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2385use is:
2386
2387 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2388
2389The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2390It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2391shared across multiple host platforms.
2392
2393 * longjmp() handling
2394
2395GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2396siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2397all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2398platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2399
2400 * Solaris 2.0
2401
2402Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2403this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2404reading symbols.
2405
2406 * Bug fixes
2407
2408As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2409People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2410crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2411
2412*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2413
2414 * New machines supported (host and target)
2415
2416SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2417 (except core files)
2418BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2419Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2420
2421 * New machines supported (target)
2422
2423AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2424
2425 * C++ support
2426
2427GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2428The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2429per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2430
2431GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2432`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2433extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2434good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2435will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2436released.
2437
2438 * New features for SVR4
2439
2440GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2441shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2442only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2443
2444The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2445on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2446it prints the address mappings of the process.
2447
2448If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2449bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2450
2451 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2452
2453Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2454now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2455skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2456make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2457same code linked statically.
2458
2459 * New Getopt
2460
2461GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2462version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2463continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2464Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2465added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2466future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2467
2468 * Bugs fixed
2469
2470The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2471Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2472See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2473
2474
2475*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2476
2477 * New machines supported (host and target)
2478
2479Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2480NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2481Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2482
2483 * Almost SCO Unix support
2484
2485We had hoped to support:
2486SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2487(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2488that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2489about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2490
2491 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2492
2493GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2494debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2495is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2496send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2497reqired (if any).
2498
2499 * New Readline
2500
2501GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2502is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2503required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2504
2505 * Bugs fixed
2506
2507The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2508Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2509See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2510
2511 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2512
2513GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2514supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2515symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2516
2517Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2518mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2519debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2520mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2521version 2.
2522
2523Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2524really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2525line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2526variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2527situation somewhat.
2528
2529When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2530However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2531methods.
2532
2533We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2534DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2535encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2536
2537
2538*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2539
2540 * Improved configuration
2541
2542Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2543Porting BFD is simpler.
2544
2545 * Stepping improved
2546
2547The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2548of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2549in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2550function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2551
2552 * Bug fixing
2553
2554Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2555
2556 * New host supported (not target)
2557
2558Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2559
2560
2561*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2562
2563 * Multiple source language support
2564
2565GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2566It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2567and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2568language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2569You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2570`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2571
2572 * GDB and Modula-2
2573
2574GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2575currently under development at the State University of New York at
2576Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2577continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2578
2579Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2580debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2581symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2582
2583There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2584in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2585
2586 * set write on/off
2587
2588GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2589a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2590the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2591by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2592effect immediately.
2593
2594 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2595
2596When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2597shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2598The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2599examining core files.
2600
2601 * set listsize
2602
2603You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2604The default is 10.
2605
2606 * New machines supported (host and target)
2607
2608SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2609Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2610Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2611
2612 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2613
2614IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2615
2616 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2617
2618AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2619AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2620Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2621
2622 * New remote interfaces
2623
2624AMD 29000 Adapt
2625AMD 29000 Minimon
2626
2627
2628*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2629
2630 * New Facilities
2631
2632Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2633
2634Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2635target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2636is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2637remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2638remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2639also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2640using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2641stub on the target system.
2642
2643New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2644
2645GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2646library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2647object file types such as a.out and coff.
2648
2649There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2650refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2651
2652
2653 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2654
2655All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2656by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2657
2658For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2659``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2660Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2661
2662What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2663print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2664will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2665all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2666
2667confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2668 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2669 it is already running. Default is ON.
2670
2671editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2672 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2673 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2674 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2675 Default is ON.
2676
2677history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2678 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2679 or the value of the environment variable
2680 GDBHISTFILE.
2681
2682history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2683 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2684 HISTSIZE.
2685
2686history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2687 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2688 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2689
2690history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2691 history expansion will be performed on
2692 command line input. The default is OFF.
2693
2694radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2695 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2696 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2697
2698height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2699 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2700 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2701 variable TERM.
2702
2703width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2704 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2705 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2706 variable TERM.
2707
2708Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2709``set width'' instead.
2710
2711print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2712 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2713 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2714 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2715
2716print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2717 is OFF.
2718
2719print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2720 "raw" form if off.
2721
2722print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2723 like instructions.
2724
2725print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2726
2727
2728 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2729
2730The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2731new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2732are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2733window.
2734
2735
2736 * Support for Shared Libraries
2737
2738GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2739Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2740before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2741happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2742At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2743from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2744shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2745It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2746
2747sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2748 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2749 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2750
2751info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2752
2753
2754 * Watchpoints
2755
2756A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2757expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2758tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2759quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2760problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2761more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2762
2763watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2764
2765info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2766
2767delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2768disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2769enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2770
2771
2772 * C++ multiple inheritance
2773
2774When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2775for C++ programs.
2776
2777 * C++ exception handling
2778
2779Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2780ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2781the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2782handler's context).
2783
2784catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2785 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2786 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2787
2788info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2789 current stack frame.
2790
2791
2792 * Minor command changes
2793
2794The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2795command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2796is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2797
2798The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2799at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2800frames without printing.
2801
2802 * New directory command
2803
2804'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2805The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2806about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2807with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2808find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2809
2810 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2811
2812For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2813for more details.
2814
2815GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2816two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2817Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2818where the program that you are debugging will run.
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