* boards/dwarf4-gdb-index.exp: New file.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
80c8d323
JB
4*** Changes since GDB 7.5
5
a72c3253
DE
6* Python scripting
7
8 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
9
10* New Python-based convenience functions:
11
12 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
13 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
14 ** $_strlen(str)
15 ** $_regex(str, regex)
16
f3c8a52a
JK
17* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
18 given an argument.
19
23a80689
JB
20* New configure options
21
22--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
23 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
24 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
25 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
26 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
27 options allow the user to override that default.
28
d6b28940
TT
29* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
30
31maint info bfds
32 List the BFDs known to GDB.
33
8315665e
YPK
34python-interactive [command]
35pi [command]
36 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
37 and print the result of expressions.
38
39py [command]
40 "py" is a new alias for "python".
41
aa9259cc
TS
42* Removed commands
43
44 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
45 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
46 instead.
47
5b9afe8a
YQ
48* MI changes
49
50 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
51 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
52 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
53 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
bb25a15c
YQ
54 ** The creation and deletion of trace state variables are now notified
55 using new async records "=tsv-created" and "=tsv-deleted".
5b9afe8a 56
80c8d323 57*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 58
1b3371b1
L
59* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
60 for more x32 ABI info.
61
d0e64392
MR
62* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
63
4cc0665f
MR
64* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
65
85d4a676
SS
66* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
67 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
68 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
69 "info os files" lists file descriptors
70 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
71 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
72 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
73 "info os msg" lists message queues
74 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
75
55aa24fb
SDJ
76* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
77 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
78 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
79 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
80 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
81 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
82
72508ac0
PO
83* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
84 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
85 record/replay support.
86
16899756
DE
87* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
88
4795f398
DE
89* Python scripting
90
7d74f244
DE
91 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
92 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
93
4795f398
DE
94 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
95
50897289
TT
96 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
97 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
98
64e7d9dd
TT
99 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
100
101 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
102 the source at which the symbol was defined.
103
f0823d2c
TT
104 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
105 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
106 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
107 symbol's value.
108
7b282c5a
SCR
109 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
110 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
111
a20ee7a4
SCR
112 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
113 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
114 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
115
7efc75aa
SCR
116 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
117 object associated with a PC value.
118
ee0bf529
SCR
119 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
120 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
121
a766d390
DE
122* Go language support.
123 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
124 language.
125
e0f9f062
DE
126* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
127 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
128
217bff3e
JK
129* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
130 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
131
cafec441
TT
132* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
133 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
134 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
135 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
136 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
137 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
138
4aac40c8
TT
139* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
140 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
141 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
142 build/libcpp/expr.c.
143
d99bd577
UW
144* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
145 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
146
53fe1783
GB
147* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
148 since December 2007.
149
e41eec66
JB
150* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
151 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
152 command does. For instance:
153
154 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
155
156 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
157 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
158 created, using the "condition" command.
159
5808517f
YQ
160* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
161 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
162
481860b3
GB
163* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
164
165* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
166 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
167 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
168 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
169 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
170 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
171 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
172 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 173
156942c7
DE
174 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
175 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
176 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
177 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
178 the .gdb_index section.
179
927fbba6
JB
180* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
181
20388dd6
YQ
182* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
183 target.
184
f3e0e960
SS
185* MI changes
186
187 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
188
37ce89eb
SS
189 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
190
edcc5120
TT
191* New commands
192
e615022a
DE
193 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
194 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
195 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
196
edcc5120
TT
197 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
198 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
199
816338b5
SS
200 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
201 several hits.
202
57651221 203 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
204 C++ and Java objects.
205
06fc020f
SCR
206 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
207 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
208 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
209 configured with '--with-python'.
210
bf88dd68
JK
211 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
212 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
213 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
214 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
215 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
216 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
217 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
218
219 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
220 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
221 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
222 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
223
e7e0cddf
SS
224 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
225 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
226 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
227 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
228
9cb709b6
TT
229 ** "set print symbol"
230 "show print symbol"
231 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
232 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
233 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
234
2d4c29c5
TS
235* Deprecated commands
236
237 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
238 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
239
a58b110a
KB
240* New targets
241
242Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 243HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 244
72895ff6
LM
245* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
246 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
247 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
248 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
249 evaluates to true.
250
251* New options
252
4cc0665f
MR
253set mips compression
254show mips compression
255 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
256 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
257 mips16
258 micromips
259 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
260
72895ff6
LM
261set breakpoint condition-evaluation
262show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 263 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
264 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
265 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
266 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
267 target.
268
bf88dd68
JK
269set auto-load off
270 Disable auto-loading globally.
271
272show auto-load
273 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
274
275set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
276show auto-load gdb-scripts
277 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
278
279set auto-load python-scripts on|off
280show auto-load python-scripts
281 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
282
283set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
284show auto-load local-gdbinit
285 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
286
287set auto-load libthread-db on|off
288show auto-load libthread-db
289 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
290
7349ff92 291set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 292show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
293 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
294 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
295 of the directories listed by this option.
296 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
297
bccbefd2
JK
298set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
299show auto-load safe-path
300 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
301 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
302
4dc84fd1
JK
303set debug auto-load on|off
304show debug auto-load
305 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
306
d3ce09f5 307set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 308show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
309 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
310 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
311 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
312 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
313
314set dprintf-function <expr>
315show dprintf-function
316set dprintf-channel <expr>
317show dprintf-channel
318 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
319 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
320
d3ce09f5
SS
321set disconnected-dprintf on|off
322show disconnected-dprintf
323 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
324 after GDB disconnects.
325
6dea1fbd
JK
326* New configure options
327
7349ff92
JK
328--with-auto-load-dir
329 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
330 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
331 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
332 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
333 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 334
6dea1fbd
JK
335--with-auto-load-safe-path
336 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 337 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
338
339--without-auto-load-safe-path
340 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
341 security feature.
342
72895ff6
LM
343* New remote packets
344
74c48cbb
PA
345z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
346
72895ff6
LM
347 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
348 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
349 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
350 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
351
9b224c5e
PA
352QProgramSignals:
353
354 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
355 program without GDB involvement.
356
8320cc4f
JK
357* New command line options
358
359--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
360 before loading inferior.
361--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
362 execute it before loading inferior.
363
8837a20f
JB
364*** Changes in GDB 7.4
365
f8eba3c6
TT
366* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
367 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
368 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
369 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
370 inferior changes.
371
1bfeeb0f
JL
372* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
373 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
374
480a3f21
PW
375* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
376 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
377 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
378 target hardware watchpoint.
379
380 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
381 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
382 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
383 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
384
3a7bf607
PM
385* Python scripting
386
32d1c362 387 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 388 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
389 existing one.
390
3a7bf607 391 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
392 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
393 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
394 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
395 now "message", which just prints the error message without
396 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 397
baacfb07 398 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 399 Python API.
713389e0 400
fa3a4f15
PM
401 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
402 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 403 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
404 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
405 corresponding value.
406
5e239b84
PM
407 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
408 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
409 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
410 on GDB start-up.
411
9df2fbc4
PM
412 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
413 static_block will return the global and static blocks
414 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
415 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
416
457e09f0
DE
417 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
418
6839b47f
KP
419 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
420 "gdb.breakpoints".
421
cc72b2a2
KP
422 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
423 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
424 available in the CLI.
425
84ad80e6
PK
426 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
427 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
428 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
429 "some_type.items()".
430
20c168b5
KP
431 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
432 new object file.
433
03c3051a
PK
434 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
435 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
436 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
437 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
438 any anonymous fields.
439
7376e450
TT
440* MI changes
441
442 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
443 "solib-event".
444
445 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
446 "=breakpoint-modified".
447
448 ** New command -ada-task-info.
449
98a5dd13
DE
450* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
451 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
452 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
453 lives.
454
455 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
456 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
457 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
458 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
459 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
460
461 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
462 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
463
478aac75
DE
464* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
465 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
466 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
467 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
468 use this option to specify where to find it.
469
9c06b0b4
TJB
470* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
471 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
472 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
473 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
474 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
475 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
476 section in the user manual for more details.
477
03f2bd59
JK
478* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
479 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
480 become available after that.
481
71eba9c2 482* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 483
2bda9cc5
JK
484* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
485 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
486 gcc version 4.7.
487
ed59ded5
DE
488* New commands
489
490!SHELL COMMAND
491 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
492 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
493
9c06b0b4
TJB
494* Changed commands
495
496watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
497 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
498 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
499
dbaefcf7
DE
500info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
501 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
502 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
503
71eba9c2 504info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
505 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
506 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
507 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
508 name starts with a hyphen.
509
3065dfb6
SS
510collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
511 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
512 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
513 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
514 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
515 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
516 number of bytes that will be collected.
517
f196051f
SS
518tstart [NOTES]
519 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
520 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
521 setting the variable trace-notes.
522
523tstop [NOTES]
524 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
525 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
526 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
527 trace-stop-notes.
528
d248b706
KY
529* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
530 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
531 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
532 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
533 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
534 is running.
535
405f8e94
SS
536* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
537 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
538 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
539
2bda9cc5
JK
540* New options
541
45cfd468
DE
542set debug dwarf2-read
543show debug dwarf2-read
544 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
545 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
546
547set debug symtab-create
548show debug symtab-create
549 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
550 creation. The default is off.
551
baacfb07
PM
552set extended-prompt
553show extended-prompt
554 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
555 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
556 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
557 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
558 prompt is displayed.
559
2bda9cc5
JK
560set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
561show print entry-values
562 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
563 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
564 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
565
566set debug entry-values
567show debug entry-values
568 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
569 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
570
c011a4f4
DE
571set basenames-may-differ
572show basenames-may-differ
573 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
574 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
575 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
576 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
577 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
578 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
579 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
580 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
581
f196051f
SS
582set trace-user
583show trace-user
584set trace-notes
585show trace-notes
586 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
587 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
588 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
589 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
590
591set trace-stop-notes
592show trace-stop-notes
593 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
594 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
595 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
596 started by someone else.
597
d248b706
KY
598* New remote packets
599
600QTEnable
601
602 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
603
604QTDisable
605
606 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
607
f196051f
SS
608QTNotes
609
610 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
611
612qTP
613
614 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
615
405f8e94
SS
616qTMinFTPILen
617
618 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
619 be placed.
620
1a532630
PP
621* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
622 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
623
11315641
YQ
624* New targets
625
626Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
627
87326c78
DD
628* New Simulators
629
630Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
631
e8d56f18
JB
632*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
633
634* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
635
d6e00af6 636*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 637
60f98dde
MS
638* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
639 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
640 matches the given regular expression.
641
eee5b35e
DD
642* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
643
b716877b
AB
644* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
645 dumping the instruction opcodes.
646
aae1c79a
DE
647* New command line options
648
649-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
650 This is mostly for testing purposes.
651
a86caf66
DE
652* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
653 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
654
99e7ae30
DE
655* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
656 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
657 source path list instead of augmenting it.
658
4694da01
TT
659* GDB now understands thread names.
660
661 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
662 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
663
664 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
665 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
666
f4b8a18d
KW
667* OpenCL C
668 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
669 has been integrated into GDB.
670
585d1eb8
PM
671* Python scripting
672
da5d4055
PM
673 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
674 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
675 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
676
9a6f1302
PM
677 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
678 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
679 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
680 and allows for more dynamic content.
681
29703da4
PM
682 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
683 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
684 have an is_valid method.
685
350c6c65
PM
686 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
687 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
688 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
689
6e6fbe60
DE
690 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
691
585d1eb8
PM
692 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
693 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
694 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
695 that function like so:
696
697 result = some_value (10,20)
698
0e3509db
DE
699 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
700 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
701 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
702
7b51bc51
DE
703 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
704 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
705 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
706 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
707 New function: register_pretty_printer.
708
709 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
710 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
711
99e7ae30
DE
712 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
713
d8e22779
TT
714 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
715 selected thread.
716
4694da01
TT
717 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
718 holds the thread's name.
719
505500db
SW
720 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
721 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 722 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
723 The following events are currently supported:
724 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
725 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
726 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
727
def98928
TT
728* C++ Improvements:
729
730 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
731 instantiation. For example, if you have:
732
733 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
734
735 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
736 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
737 was added to GCC 4.5.
738
66cb8159
TT
739 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
740 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
741 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
742 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
743 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
744 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
745
4aac0db7
UW
746* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
747 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
748 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
749 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
750 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
751
283e6a52
TT
752* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
753 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
754 execution to a label.
755
756* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
757 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
758 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
759 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
760
b56df873 761* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 762 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
763 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
764 of scope.
765
ae53ffa4
PA
766* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
767
768 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
769 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
770 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
771 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
772 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
773 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
774
775 (gdb) info threads
776 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
777
778 While now you see this:
779
780 (gdb) info threads
781 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
782
783 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
784 dumps.
785
786 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
787 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
788 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
789 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
790
f1310107
TJB
791* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
792 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
793 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
794 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
795 section in the user manual for more details.
796
248c9dbc
JB
797* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
798
1aee7009
JB
799 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
800 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 801
eb826dc6
MF
802 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
803
44603653
JB
804* New native configurations
805
806ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
807
91021223
MF
808* New targets:
809
810Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
811
6e1bb179
JB
812* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
813 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
814 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
815 in the GDB user manual.
816
50c97f38
TT
817* Guile support was removed.
818
448a92bf
MF
819* New features in the GNU simulator
820
821 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
822
66ee2731
MF
823 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
824
76b8507d 825*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 826
ba25b921
PA
827* Shared library support for remote targets by default
828
829 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
830 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
831 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
832 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
833 was always disabled for such configurations.
834
4656f5c6
SW
835* C++ Improvements:
836
837 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
838
839 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
840 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
841 For example:
842 namespace A
843 {
844 class B { };
845 void foo (B) { }
846 }
847 ...
848 A::B b
849 foo(b)
850 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
851 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
852 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
853
854 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
855
856 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
857 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
858 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
859 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
860 entry.
861 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
862 mentioned flavors of operators.
863
254e6b9e
DE
864 ** static const class members
865
866 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
867 class definition has been fixed.
868
711e434b
PM
869* Windows Thread Information Block access.
870
871 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
872 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
873 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
874 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
875 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
876 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
877
0fb4aa4b
PA
878* Static tracepoints
879
880 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
881 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
882 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
883 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
884 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
885 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
886 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
887 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
888 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
889 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
890 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
891 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
892 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
893 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
894 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
895 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
896 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
897 the "New remote packets" section below.
898
ca11e899
SS
899* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
900
901 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
902 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
903 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
904 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
905
906* Observer mode
907
908 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
909 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
910 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
911 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
912 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
913 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
914 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
915
916* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
917 current thread.
918
711e434b
PM
919* New remote packets
920
921qGetTIBAddr
922
923 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
924
dde08ee1
PA
925qRelocInsn
926
927 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
928 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
929 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
930 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
931 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
932 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
933
0fb4aa4b
PA
934qTfSTM, qTsSTM
935
936 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
937
938qTSTMat
939
940 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
941 program.
942
943qXfer:statictrace:read
944
945 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
946 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
947 to gdb's qSupported query.
948
ca11e899
SS
949QAllow
950
951 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
952
953QTDPsrc
954
955 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
956 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
957
3f7b2faa
DE
958* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
959 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
960 a directory.
961
d337e9f0
PA
962* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
963
0fb4aa4b
PA
964 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
965 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
966 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
967 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
968
969 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
970 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
971 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
972 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
973 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
974 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
975 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
976
977 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
978 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 979
c24d0242
PM
980 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
981
c8d5aac9
L
982* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
983 it understands register description.
984
7c953934
TT
985* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
986
8685c86f
L
987* X86 general purpose registers
988
989 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
990 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
991 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
992 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
993 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
994
95a42b64 995* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
996 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
997 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
998 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
999 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1000 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1001
8bd10a10
CM
1002* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1003 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1004 in the specified file.
1005
ab38a727
PA
1006* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1007 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1008 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1009 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1010 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1011 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1012 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1013 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1014 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1015 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1016
6149aea9
PA
1017* New commands
1018
f1421989
HZ
1019eval template, expressions...
1020 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1021 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1022
ab38a727
PA
1023set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1024show target-file-system-kind
1025 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1026 names.
1027
6149aea9
PA
1028save breakpoints <filename>
1029 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1030 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1031 definitions, use the `source' command.
1032
1033`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1034is now deprecated.
1035
0fb4aa4b
PA
1036info static-tracepoint-markers
1037 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1038
1039strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1040 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1041 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1042
ca11e899
SS
1043set observer on|off
1044show observer
1045 Enable and disable observer mode.
1046
1047set may-write-registers on|off
1048set may-write-memory on|off
1049set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1050set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1051set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1052set may-interrupt on|off
1053 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1054 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1055 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1056 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1057 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1058 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1059 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1060
1061set record memory-query on|off
1062show record memory-query
1063 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1064 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1065
53a71c06
CR
1066* Changed commands
1067
1068disassemble
1069 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1070
f3e9a817
PM
1071* Python scripting
1072
9279c692
JB
1073** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1074 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1075 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1076 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1077 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1078
adc36818 1079** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1080 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1081 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1082 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1083
fa33c3cd 1084** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1085 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1086
1087** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1088
1089** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1090
967cf477
DE
1091** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1092
8a1ea21f
DE
1093** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1094 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1095 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1096
a7bdde9e
VP
1097* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1098there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1099tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1100regular breakpoints.
1101
05071a4d
PA
1102* New targets
1103
1104ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1105
6aecb9c2
JB
1106* D language support.
1107 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1108 language.
1109
431e49aa
TJB
1110* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1111 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1112 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1113 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1114 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1115
1116* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1117 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1118 conditions of the form:
1119
1120 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1121
1122 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1123 interface mentioned above.
1124
bfbf3774 1125*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1126
4eef138c
TT
1127* C++ Improvements
1128
1129 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1130
1131 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1132 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1133 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1134 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1135 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1136
4eef138c
TT
1137 ** Bug Fixes
1138
1139 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1140 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1141 qualified name.
1142
1143 ** Cast Operators
1144
1145 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1146 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1147
2d1c1221
ME
1148* New targets
1149
1150Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1151Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1152
1153* New Simulators
1154
1155Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1156Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1157
6c95b8df
PA
1158* Multi-program debugging.
1159
1160 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1161 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1162 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1163 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1164 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1165 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1166 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1167 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1168
d5551862
SS
1169* New tracing features
1170
1171 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1172
1173 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1174
1175 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1176 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1177 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1178 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1179 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1180 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1181 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1182 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1183 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1184 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1185
d5551862 1186 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1187
1188 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1189 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1190 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1191 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1192 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1193 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1194 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1195 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1196 the regular trace command.
1197
d5551862
SS
1198 ** Disconnected tracing
1199
1200 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1201 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1202 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1203 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1204 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1205
00bf0b85
SS
1206 ** Trace files
1207
1208 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1209 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1210 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1211 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1212 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1213 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1214 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1215
1216 ** Circular trace buffer
1217
1218 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1219 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1220 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1221 not be available for all target agents.
1222
21a0512e
PP
1223* Changed commands
1224
1225disassemble
1226 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1227 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1228
0fe7935b
DJ
1229info variables
1230 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1231 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1232
fb2e7cb4
JB
1233source
1234 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1235 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1236 support.
1237
1238 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1239 "set script-extension" (see below).
1240
6c95b8df
PA
1241* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1242
399cd161
MS
1243record save [<FILENAME>]
1244 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1245 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1246
1247record restore <FILENAME>
1248 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1249 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1250
6c95b8df
PA
1251add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1252 Add a new inferior.
1253
1254clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1255 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1256 inferior has loaded.
1257
1258remove-inferior ID
1259 Remove an inferior.
1260
1261maint info program-spaces
1262 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1263
9a7071a8
JB
1264set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1265show remote interrupt-sequence
1266 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1267 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1268 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1269 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1270 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1271
1272set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1273show remote interrupt-on-connect
1274 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1275 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1276 Linux kernel.
1277
1278set remotebreak [on | off]
1279show remotebreak
1280Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1281
f61e138d
SS
1282tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1283 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1284
1285info tvariables
1286 List trace state variables and their values.
1287
1288delete tvariable $NAME ...
1289 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1290
6da95a67
SS
1291teval EXPR, ...
1292 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1293 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1294
7a697b8d
SS
1295ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1296 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1297
b0f02ee9
JK
1298* New expression syntax
1299
1300 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1301 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1302
6c95b8df
PA
1303* New options
1304
1305set follow-exec-mode new|same
1306show follow-exec-mode
1307 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1308 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1309 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1310
236f1d4d
SS
1311set default-collect EXPR, ...
1312show default-collect
1313 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1314 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1315 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1316
d5551862
SS
1317set disconnected-tracing
1318show disconnected-tracing
1319 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1320 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1321 upon disconnection.
1322
4daf5ac0
SS
1323set circular-trace-buffer
1324show circular-trace-buffer
1325 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1326 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1327 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1328 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1329
fb2e7cb4
JB
1330set script-extension off|soft|strict
1331show script-extension
1332 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1333 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1334 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1335 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1336 evaluation failed.
1337 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1338
2b71fc8e
JB
1339set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1340show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1341 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1342 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1343 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1344 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1345 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1346 is on.
1347
de2e5182
TT
1348* Python API Improvements
1349
1350 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1351 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1352 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1353
1354 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1355 `is_base_class' attribute.
1356
1357 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1358
1359 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1360 evaluate an expression.
1361
f61e138d
SS
1362* New remote packets
1363
1364QTDV
1365 Define a trace state variable.
1366
1367qTV
1368 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1369
d5551862
SS
1370QTDisconnected
1371 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1372
4daf5ac0
SS
1373QTBuffer:circular
1374 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1375
d5551862
SS
1376qTfP, qTsP
1377 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1378
2d483d34
MS
1379* Bug fixes
1380
1381Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1382
6e0e5977
JB
1383Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1384much more reliable. In particular:
1385 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1386 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1387 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1388 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1389 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1390 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1391 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1392 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1393 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1394 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1395 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1396 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1397 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1398 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1399 non-threaded programs.
1400
93c26624
JK
1401PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1402This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1403libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1404executable program.
1405
abc7453d 1406*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1407
4efc6507
DE
1408* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1409dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1410them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1411for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1412"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1413
782b2b07
SS
1414* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1415breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1416or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1417the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1418for tracepoint actions.
1419
53a71c06
CR
1420* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1421raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1422modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1423
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1424* Process record and replay
1425
1426 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1427 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1428 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1429 execute commands.
1430
64644d9b
MS
1431* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1432step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1433set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1434reverse execution.
1435
b9412953
DD
1436* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1437feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
14382.6.28 or later.
1439
6c7a06a3
TT
1440* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1441target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1442char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1443literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1444U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1445`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1446system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1447the installation instructions for more information.
1448
f1838a98
UW
1449* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1450remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1451with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1452the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1453
55333a84
DE
1454* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1455and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1456
7f6a6314
PM
1457* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1458now complete on file names.
1459
65d12d83
TT
1460* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1461completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1462For instance, consider:
1463
1464 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1465 # struct example variable;
1466 (gdb) p variable.
1467
1468If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1469completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1470
edb3359d
DJ
1471* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1472the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1473
2fae03e8
TT
1474* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1475operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1476macros.
1477
47a3467a 1478* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1479the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1480implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1481
1482* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1483registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1484can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1485and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1486
08388c79
DE
1487* New remote packets
1488
1489qSearch:memory:
1490 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1491
a6f3e723
SL
1492QStartNoAckMode
1493 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1494 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1495 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1496
d7713ae0
EZ
1497vKill
1498 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1499 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1500
07e059b5
VP
1501qXfer:osdata:read
1502 Obtains additional operating system information
1503
47a3467a
PA
1504qXfer:siginfo:read
1505qXfer:siginfo:write
1506 Read or write additional signal information.
1507
060871df
PA
1508* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1509
1510 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1511 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1512 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1513
c055b101 1514* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1515DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1516
1517* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1518and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1519`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1520
31fffb02
CS
1521* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1522with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1523
88d8a8e0
JB
1524* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1525
7f99b190
JB
1526* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1527
ccd213ac
DJ
1528* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1529which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1530
1fddbabb 1531* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1532list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1533
a0ef4274
DJ
1534* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1535conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1536have also been fixed.
1537
bfb8797a 1538* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1539From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1540are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1541
71c25dea
TT
1542* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1543example, given:
1544
1545 template<typename T> class C { };
1546 C<char const *> c;
1547
1548GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1549
1550 ptype C<char const *>
1551 ptype C<char const*>
1552 ptype C<const char *>
1553 ptype C<const char*>
1554
ccd213ac
DJ
1555* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1556
1557 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1558 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1559
7ae0e2a2
UW
1560 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1561 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1562 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1563
a6f3e723
SL
1564 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1565 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1566
da8bd9a3
DJ
1567 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1568 gdbserver.
1569
d70e31dd
DE
1570 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1571 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1572
1573 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1574 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1575 as appropriate.
1576
d57a3c85
TJB
1577* Python scripting
1578
1579 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1580 available is determined at configure time.
1581
d8906c6f
TJB
1582 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1583
aadc346a
JB
1584* Ada tasking support
1585
1586 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1587 been introduced:
1588
1589 info tasks
1590 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1591 info task N
1592 Print detailed information about task number N.
1593 task
1594 Print the task number of the current task.
1595 task N
1596 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1597
adb483fe
DJ
1598* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1599add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1600
2277426b
PA
1601* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1602
1603 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1604 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1605 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1606 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1607 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1608 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1609 below.
1610
08d16641
PA
1611* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1612"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1613information.
1614
e35359c5
UW
1615* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1616to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1617architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1618See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1619more information.
1620
85e747d2
UW
1621* Multi-architecture debugging.
1622
1623 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1624 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1625 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1626 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1627 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1628
1629* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1630use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1631Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1632powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1633--enable-targets configure option.
1634
11ade57a
PA
1635* Non-stop mode debugging.
1636
1637 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1638 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1639 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1640 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1641 section in the user manual for more information.
1642
1643 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1644 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1645 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1646 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1647 extensions on linux targets.
1648
d7713ae0 1649* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1650
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1651catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1652 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1653 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1654 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1655 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1656 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1657 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1658 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1659 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1660
08388c79
DE
1661find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1662 val1 [, val2, ...]
1663 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1664
d57a3c85
TJB
1665maint set python print-stack
1666maint show python print-stack
1667 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1668
1669python [CODE]
1670 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1671
d7713ae0
EZ
1672macro define
1673macro list
1674macro undef
1675 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1676 interactively.
1677
1678info os processes
1679 Show operating system information about processes.
1680
2277426b
PA
1681info inferiors
1682 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1683
1684inferior NUM
1685 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1686
1687detach inferior NUM
1688 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1689
1690kill inferior NUM
1691 Kill inferior number NUM.
1692
d7713ae0
EZ
1693* New options
1694
3285f3fe
UW
1695set spu stop-on-load
1696show spu stop-on-load
1697 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1698
ff1a52c6
UW
1699set spu auto-flush-cache
1700show spu auto-flush-cache
1701 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1702 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1703
d7713ae0
EZ
1704set sh calling-convention
1705show sh calling-convention
1706 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1707
e0a3ce09 1708set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1709show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1710 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1711
1712set disassemble-next-line
1713show disassemble-next-line
1714 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1715 the debuggee stops.
1716
1717set remote noack-packet
1718show remote noack-packet
1719 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1720 under "New remote packets."
1721
1722set remote query-attached-packet
1723show remote query-attached-packet
1724 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1725
1726set remote read-siginfo-object
1727show remote read-siginfo-object
1728 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1729 packet.
1730
1731set remote write-siginfo-object
1732show remote write-siginfo-object
1733 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1734 packet.
1735
40ab02ce
MS
1736set remote reverse-continue
1737show remote reverse-continue
1738 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1739
1740set remote reverse-step
1741show remote reverse-step
1742 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1743
d7713ae0
EZ
1744set displaced-stepping
1745show displaced-stepping
1746 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1747 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1748 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1749
1750set debug displaced
1751show debug displaced
1752 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1753
1754maint set internal-error
1755maint show internal-error
1756 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1757
1758maint set internal-warning
1759maint show internal-warning
1760 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1761
ccd213ac
DJ
1762set exec-wrapper
1763show exec-wrapper
1764unset exec-wrapper
1765 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1766
aad4b048
JB
1767set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1768show multiple-symbols
1769 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1770 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1771 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1772
74960c60
VP
1773set breakpoint always-inserted
1774show breakpoint always-inserted
1775 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1776 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1777 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1778
0428b8f5
DJ
1779set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1780show arm fallback-mode
1781set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1782show arm force-mode
1783 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1784 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1785 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1786 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1787
10568435
JK
1788set disable-randomization
1789show disable-randomization
1790 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1791 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1792 multiple debugging sessions.
1793
d7713ae0
EZ
1794set non-stop
1795show non-stop
1796 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1797 a breakpoint.
1798
b3eb342c 1799set target-async
d7713ae0 1800show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1801 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1802 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1803 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1804 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1805
6c7a06a3
TT
1806set target-wide-charset
1807show target-wide-charset
1808 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1809 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1810
84603566
SL
1811set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1812show tcp auto-retry
1813set tcp connect-timeout
1814show tcp connect-timeout
1815 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1816 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1817 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1818
17a37d48
PP
1819set libthread-db-search-path
1820show libthread-db-search-path
1821 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1822 libthread_db.
1823
d4db2f36
PA
1824set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1825show schedule-multiple
1826 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1827 the current process.
1828
4e5d721f
DE
1829set stack-cache
1830show stack-cache
1831 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1832 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1833 affecting correctness.
1834
910c5da8
JB
1835set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1836show interactive-mode
1837 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1838 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1839 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1840 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1841 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1842
2277426b
PA
1843* Removed commands
1844
1845info forks
1846 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1847 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1848 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1849 command.
1850
1851fork NUM
1852 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1853 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1854 alias for the `fork' command.
1855
1856process PID
1857 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1858 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1859 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1860
1861delete fork NUM
1862 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1863 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1864 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1865 fork' command.
1866
1867detach fork NUM
1868 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1869 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1870 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1871 fork' command.
1872
a80b95ba
TG
1873* New native configurations
1874
1875x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1876
b8bfd3ed
JB
1877x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1878
75a2d5e7
TT
1879* New targets
1880
c28c63d8 1881Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1882x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1883x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1884S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1885
6de3146c
PA
1886* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1887 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1888
d5cbbe6e
JB
1889* Removed commands
1890
1891catch load
1892catch unload
1893 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1894
75feb17d 1895*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1896
af5ca30d
NH
1897* New native configurations
1898
1899NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1900Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1901
1902* New targets
1903
1904NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1905Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1906
7a404eba
PA
1907* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1908
1909 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1910 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1911 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1912 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1913
430ebac9
PA
1914* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1915(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1916
fe6fbf8b 1917* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1918is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1919
1920* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1921including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1922and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1923
10665d76
JB
1924* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1925accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1926more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1927
7cc46491
DJ
1928* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1929
d71340b8
DJ
1930* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1931registers on PowerPC targets.
1932
523c4513
DJ
1933* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1934targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1935
a6b151f1
DJ
1936* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1937commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1938
2d717e4f
DJ
1939* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1940extended-remote mode.
1941
24a836bd 1942* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1943The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1944error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1945The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1946
d0c678e6
UW
1947* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1948building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1949target architectures.
1950
d64a946d
TJB
1951* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1952Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1953now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1954stored in two consecutive float registers.
1955
ee163bf5
VP
1956* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1957breakpoints now.
1958
b93b6ca7 1959* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1960Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1961include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1962 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1963 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1964 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1965 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1966 of an assignment
1967 - Improved command completion in Ada
1968 - Several bug fixes
1969
d001be7a
DJ
1970* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1971process.
1972
a6b151f1
DJ
1973* New commands
1974
6d53d0af
JB
1975set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1976show print frame-arguments
1977 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1978 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1979
a6b151f1
DJ
1980remote put
1981remote get
1982remote delete
1983 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1984
1985* New MI commands
1986
1987-target-file-put
1988-target-file-get
1989-target-file-delete
1990 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1991
1992* New remote packets
1993
1994vFile:open:
1995vFile:close:
1996vFile:pread:
1997vFile:pwrite:
1998vFile:unlink:
1999 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2000
2d717e4f
DJ
2001vAttach
2002 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2003 mode.
2004
2005vRun
2006 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2007
8d5f9c6f 2008*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2009
19d378fc
MS
2010* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2011bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2012Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2013
3a40aaa0
UW
2014* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2015symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2016-Bsymbolic linker option.
2017
a6ec25f2
BW
2018* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2019recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2020is not supported.
2021
6dd09645
JB
2022* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2023frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2024
c9bb8148
DJ
2025* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
202632-bit or 64-bit register values.
2027
0d5de010
DJ
2028* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2029
23181151
DJ
2030* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2031target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2032a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2033
ea37ba09
DJ
2034* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2035automatically displayed as character or string data.
2036
2037* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2038arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2039as strings.
e1f48ead 2040
123dc839
DJ
2041* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2042for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2043only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2044
05a4558a
DJ
2045* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2046iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2047
7c963485
PA
2048* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2049ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2050has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2051
b18be20d
DJ
2052* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2053
0ca420ce
UW
2054* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2055
31d99776
DJ
2056* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2057layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2058segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2059
a4642986
MR
2060* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2061immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2062
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2063* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2064"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2065packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2066where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2067Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2068
2069* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2070(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2071
2072* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2073according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2074
c9bb8148
DJ
2075* New commands
2076
23776285
MR
2077set remoteflow
2078show remoteflow
2079 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2080 when debugging using remote targets.
2081
c9bb8148
DJ
2082set mem inaccessible-by-default
2083show mem inaccessible-by-default
2084 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2085 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2086 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2087 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2088 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2089
2090set breakpoint auto-hw
2091show breakpoint auto-hw
2092 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2093 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2094 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2095 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2096 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2097 including "next" and "finish".
2098
0e420bd8
JB
2099catch exception
2100catch exception unhandled
2101 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2102
2103catch assert
2104 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2105
f822c95b
DJ
2106set sysroot
2107show sysroot
2108 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2109 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2110 an alias to "set sysroot".
2111
83cc5c53
UW
2112info spu
2113 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2114 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2115 architecture.
2116
bd372731
MK
2117* New native configurations
2118
2119OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2120
23181151
DJ
2121set tdesc filename
2122unset tdesc filename
2123show tdesc filename
2124 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2125 not query the target for its built-in description.
2126
c9bb8148
DJ
2127* New targets
2128
54fe9172 2129OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2130MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2131Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2132
6dd09645
JB
2133* New remote packets
2134
2135QPassSignals:
2136 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2137 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2138
23181151
DJ
2139qXfer:features:read:
2140 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2141 features.
6dd09645 2142
83cc5c53
UW
2143qXfer:spu:read:
2144qXfer:spu:write:
2145 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2146 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2147
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2148qXfer:libraries:read:
2149 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2150 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2151 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2152 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2153
483367ee
DJ
2154* Removed targets
2155
2156Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2157
d08950c4
UW
2158alpha*-*-osf1*
2159alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2160d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2161hppa*-*-hiux*
2162i[34567]86-ncr-*
2163i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2164i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2165i[34567]86-*-netware*
2166i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2167i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2168i[34567]86-*-sco*
2169i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2170i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2171i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2172i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2173i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2174i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2175i[34567]86-*-isc*
2176m68*-cisco*-*
2177m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2178mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2179rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2180sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2181
7ce59000
DJ
2182* Other removed features
2183
2184target abug
2185target cpu32bug
2186target est
2187target rom68k
2188
2189 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2190
ea35711c
DJ
2191target hms
2192target e7000
2193target sh3
2194target sh3e
2195
2196 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2197 H8/300.
2198
2199target ocd
2200
2201 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2202 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2203 interfaces.
2204
7ce59000
DJ
2205DWARF 1 support
2206
2207 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2208 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2209
54d61198
DJ
2210Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2211
2212 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2213 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2214 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2215 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2216
ea35711c
DJ
2217MIPS ".pdr" sections
2218
2219 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2220 in debugging information.
2221
2222Scheme support
2223
2224 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2225 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2226
1a69e1e4
DJ
2227set mips stack-arg-size
2228set mips saved-gpreg-size
2229
2230 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2231
6dd09645 2232*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2233
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2234* New targets
2235
2236Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2237Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2238
6aec2e11
DJ
2239* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2240(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2241running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2242
2243* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2244Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2245supported.
2246
17218d91
DJ
2247* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2248broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2249
9ebce043
DJ
2250* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2251stub provides the required support.
2252
7d3d3ece
DJ
2253* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2254longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2255
4f8253f3
JB
2256* New commands
2257
2258set substitute-path
2259unset substitute-path
2260show substitute-path
2261 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2262 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2263 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2264 between compilation and debugging.
2265
9fa66fd7
AS
2266set trace-commands
2267show trace-commands
2268 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2269 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2270 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2271
1f5befc1
DJ
2272* REMOVED features
2273
2274The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2275
2ec3381a
DJ
2276Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2277an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2278
3d00d119
DJ
2279The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2280
be2a5f71
DJ
2281* New remote packets
2282
2283qSupported:
2284 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2285 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2286 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2287 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2288 target.
2289
0876f84a
DJ
2290qXfer:auxv:read:
2291 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2292 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2293
9ebce043
DJ
2294qXfer:memory-map:read:
2295 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2296 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2297
2298vFlashErase:
2299vFlashWrite:
2300vFlashDone:
2301 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2302
0876f84a
DJ
2303* Removed remote packets
2304
2305qPart:auxv:read:
2306 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2307 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2308
e374b601 2309*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2310
96309189
MS
2311* New targets
2312
2313Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2314
2315Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2316
53e5f3cf
AS
2317* New commands
2318
2319init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2320 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2321
ac264b3b
MS
2322The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2323
2324checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2325
2326restart <n> Return the program state to a
2327 previously saved state.
2328
2329info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2330
2331delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2332
2333set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2334 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2335
2336info forks List forks of the user program that
2337 are available to be debugged.
2338
2339fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2340 forks of the user program that are
2341 available to be debugged.
2342
2343delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2344 that are available to be debugged (and
2345 kill the forked process).
2346
2347detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2348 that are available to be debugged (and
2349 allow the process to continue).
2350
3950dc3f
NS
2351* New architecture
2352
2353Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2354
0ea3f30e
DJ
2355* Improved Windows host support
2356
2357GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2358native console support, and remote communications using either
2359network sockets or serial ports.
2360
f79daebb
GM
2361* Improved Modula-2 language support
2362
2363GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2364basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2365pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2366printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2367written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2368GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2369
acab6ab2
MM
2370* REMOVED features
2371
2372The ARM rdi-share module.
2373
f4267320
DJ
2374The Netware NLM debug server.
2375
53e5f3cf 2376*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2377
e0ecbda1
MK
2378* New native configurations
2379
02a677ac 2380OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2381OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2382
d64a6579
KB
2383* New targets
2384
2385Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2386
b33a6190
AS
2387* New command line options
2388
2389--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2390--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2391 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2392--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2393 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2394 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2395 with the --command (-x) option.
2396
11dced61
AC
2397* Deprecated commands removed
2398
2399The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2400removed:
2401
2402 Command Replacement
2403 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2404 othernames set arm disassembler
2405 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2406 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2407 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2408 regs info registers
2409
6fe85783
MK
2410* New BSD user-level threads support
2411
2412It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2413library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2414configurations are:
2415
2416FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2417FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2418OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2419
2420Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2421are not yet supported.
2422
5260ca71
MS
2423* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2424(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2425
e84ecc99
AC
2426* REMOVED configurations and files
2427
2428VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2429Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2430National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2431
31e35378
JB
2432* New "set print array-indexes" command
2433
2434After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2435when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2436behavior.
2437
e85e5c83
MK
2438* VAX floating point support
2439
2440GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2441
d91e9901
AS
2442* User-defined command support
2443
2444In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2445to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2446section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2447
f2cb65ca
MC
2448*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2449
f47b1503
AS
2450* New command line option
2451
2452GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2453debugging.
2454
f2cb65ca
MC
2455* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2456
2457GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2458information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2459by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2460proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2461to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2462
d08c0230
AC
2463* Internationalization
2464
2465When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2466internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2467continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2468
117ea3cf
PH
2469* Ada
2470
2471Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2472implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2473into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2474
d08c0230
AC
2475* New native configurations
2476
2477GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2478
2479* Remote 'p' packet
2480
2481GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2482packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2483
2484* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2485
2486GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2487The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2488features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2489i386 application).
2490
2491GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2492compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2493continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2494configurations:
2495
2496hppa-*-hpux
2497ia64-*-aix
2498mips-*-irix*
2499*-*-lynx
2500mips-*-linux-gnu
2501sds protocol
2502xdr protocol
2503powerpc bdm protocol
2504
2505Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2506made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2507
2508* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2509
2510Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2511been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2512configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2513permanently REMOVED.
2514
2515h8300-*-*
2516mcore-*-*
2517mn10300-*-*
2518ns32k-*-*
2519sh64-*-*
2520v850-*-*
2521
ebb7c577
AC
2522*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2523
2524* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2525
2526When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2527heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2528been fixed.
2529
2530* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2531
2532When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2533fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2534IRIX long double values).
2535
2536* VAX and "next"
2537
2538A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2539command. This problem has been fixed.
2540
860660cb 2541*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2542
0dea2468
AC
2543* Fix for ``many threads''
2544
2545On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2546rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2547error message:
2548
2549 ptrace: No such process.
2550 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2551
2552This problem has been fixed.
2553
2c07db7a
AC
2554* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2555
2556Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2557GDB to dump core).
2558
c23968a2
JB
2559* New ``start'' command.
2560
2561This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2562
71009278
MK
2563* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2564
2565Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2566live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2567platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2568
2569FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2570FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2571NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2572NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2573NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2574OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2575OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2576OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2577OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2578
3c0b7db2
AC
2579* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2580
2581Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2582These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2583of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2584call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2585signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2586
73cc75f3
AC
2587Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2588features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2589include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2590
7243600a
BF
2591* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2592
6f606e1c
MK
2593* New native configurations
2594
97dc871c 2595GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2596OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2597OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2598OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2599OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2600NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2601OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2602
a1b461bf
AC
2603* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2604
2605GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2606The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2607including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2608migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2609compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2610work, was also included.
2611
2612GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2613module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2614
2615h8300-*-*
2616mcore-*-*
2617mn10300-*-*
2618ns32k-*-*
2619sh64-*-*
2620v850-*-*
2621xstormy16-*-*
2622
2623Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2624made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2625
3c7012f5
AC
2626* REMOVED configurations and files
2627
2628Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2629Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2630Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2631Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2632Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2633AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2634Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2635decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2636riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2637sonymips mips-sony-*
2638sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2639
e5fe55f7
AC
2640*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2641
2642* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2643
2644The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2645GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2646command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2647program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2648with GDB".
2649
2650* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2651
2652Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2653libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2654cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2655GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2656shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2657the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2658are created.
2659
2660Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2661
2662* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2663
2664The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2665non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2666compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2667
2668* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2669
2670Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2671wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2672
2673* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2674
2675The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2676permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2677systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2678
2679* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2680
2681Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2682has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2683
2684* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2685
2686GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2687its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2688panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2689
2690* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2691
2692When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2693by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2694not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2695
faae5abe 2696*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2697
9175c9a3
MC
2698* Removed --with-mmalloc
2699
2700Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2701conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2702
3cc87ec0
MK
2703* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2704
2705The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2706the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2707and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2708you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2709
f0424ef6
MK
2710* Revised SPARC target
2711
2712The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2713FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2714support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2715from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2716(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2717
59659be2
ILT
2718* New C++ demangler
2719
2720GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2721names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2722with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2723programs.
2724
9e08b29b
DJ
2725* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2726
2727GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2728arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2729encountered these.
2730
8dfe8985
DC
2731* C++ nested types and namespaces
2732
2733GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2734improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2735is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2736Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2737namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2738"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2739frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2740if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2741GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2742
cced5e27
MK
2743* New native configurations
2744
2745NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2746OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2747OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2748OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2749OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2750
b4b4b794
KI
2751* New debugging protocols
2752
2753M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2754
7989c619
AC
2755* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2756
2757The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2758and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2759tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2760
5994185b
AC
2761* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2762
2763Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2764been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2765configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2766permanently REMOVED.
2767
2768Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2769Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2770Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2771Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2772Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2773AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2774Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2775decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2776riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2777sonymips mips-sony-*
2778sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2779
0ddabb4c
AC
2780* REMOVED configurations and files
2781
2782SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2783SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2784Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2785Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2786H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2787HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2788HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2789HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2790PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2791386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2792Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2793 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2794 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2795SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2796SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2797Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2798Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2799
c7f1390e
DJ
2800*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2801
1fe43d45
AC
2802* Objective-C
2803
2804Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2805integrated into GDB.
2806
e6beb428
AC
2807* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2808
2809DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2810information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2811By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2812backtraces.
2813
2814The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2815have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2816DWARF 2 CFI support.
2817
2818* Hosted file I/O.
2819
2820GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2821file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2822remote protocol documentation for details.
2823
2824* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2825
2826All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2827architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2828to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2829ppc32 on ppc64).
2830
2831* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2832
2833GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2834per-thread variables.
2835
2836* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2837
2838GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2839GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2840
2841* Separate debug info.
2842
2843GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2844automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2845of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2846system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2847and optional debug files.
2848
2849* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2850
2851DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2852describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2853debugger.
2854
2855GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2856for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2857
2858* Java
2859
2860A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2861Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2862considered "useable".
2863
85f8f974
DJ
2864* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2865
2866The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2867commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2868kernel.
2869
0fac0b41
DJ
2870* GDB supports logging output to a file
2871
2872There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2873used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2874
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2875* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2876
2877The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2878disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2879command.
2880
e286caf2 2881* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2882
2883The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2884registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2885
d28f9cdf
DJ
2886* Profiling support
2887
2888A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2889be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2890session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2891"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2892data, for more informative profiling results.
2893
da0f9dcd
AC
2894* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2895
2896The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2897option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2898"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2899
2900Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2901removed.
2902
fb9b6b35
JJ
2903Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2904Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2905Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2906 in a subsequent -var-update.
2907
954a4db8
MK
2908* New native configurations.
2909
2910FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2911
6760f9e6
JB
2912* Multi-arched targets.
2913
b4263afa 2914HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2915Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2916
1b831c93
AC
2917* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2918
2919Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2920been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2921configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2922permanently REMOVED.
2923
8b0e5691 2924Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2925Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2926H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2927HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2928HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2929HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2930PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2931Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2932 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2933 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2934Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2935Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2936
5835abe7
NC
2937* REMOVED configurations and files
2938
2939V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2940Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2941IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2942i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2943i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2944i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2945HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2946 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2947 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2948Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2949Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2950Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2951OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2952I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2953
a094c6fb
AC
2954* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2955
2956The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2957the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2958context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2959address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2960The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2961
299ffc64 2962*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2963
46248966
AC
2964* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2965
2966When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2967`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2968in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2969library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2970shared libs like mad''.
2971
b9d14705 2972* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2973
b9d14705
DJ
2974Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2975the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2976arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2977powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2978
e0e9281e
JB
2979* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2980
2981GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2982and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2983they expand.
2984
dd73b9bb
AC
2985The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2986invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2987
2988The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2989macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2990
e0e9281e
JB
2991Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2992information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2993your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2994information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2995
2250ee0c
CV
2996* Multi-arched targets.
2997
6e3ba3b8
JT
2998DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2999DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3000NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3001National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3002Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3003Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3004
cd9bfe15 3005* New targets.
e33ce519 3006
456f8b9d
DB
3007Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3008
e33ce519 3009
da8ca43d
JT
3010* New native configurations
3011
3012Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3013SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3014MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3015UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3016
cd9bfe15
AC
3017* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3018
3019Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3020been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3021configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3022permanently REMOVED.
3023
92eb23c5 3024Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3025OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3026IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3027Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3028Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3029Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3030i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3031i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3032i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3033HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3034 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3035 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3036I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3037
db034ac5
AC
3038* OBSOLETE languages
3039
3040CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3041
cd9bfe15
AC
3042* REMOVED configurations and files
3043
3044AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3045A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3046AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3047AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3048AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3049
3050testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3051
20f01a46
DH
3052* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3053
3054This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3055commands. The default is 1024.
3056
a5941fbf
MK
3057* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3058
3059Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3060
89743e04
MS
3061* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3062
3063These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3064to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3065from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3066
9fb14e79
JB
3067* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3068
3069The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3070including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3071of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3072
2037aebb
AC
3073*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3074
3075* New targets.
3076
3077Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3078
3079* Bug fixes
3080
3081gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3082mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3083Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3084
3085gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3086dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3087Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3088
3089Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3090Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3091By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3092
3093i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3094avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3095By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3096
37057839 3097*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3098
1a703748
MS
3099* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3100
3101This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3102really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3103In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3104target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3105This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3106(notably embedded) targets.
3107
cefd4ef5
MS
3108* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3109
55241689
AC
3110This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3111process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3112GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3113hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3114
352ed7b4
MS
3115* New command line option
3116
3117GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3118
3119* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3120
3121There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3122command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3123a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3124be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3125open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3126issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3127a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3128it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3129GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3130is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3131
fe419ffc
RE
3132* Changes in ARM configurations.
3133
3134Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3135configuration is fully multi-arch.
3136
eb7cedd9
MK
3137* New native configurations
3138
fe419ffc 3139ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3140x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3141AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3142Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3143
c9f63e6b
CV
3144* New targets
3145
3146Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3147
9b4ff276
AC
3148* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3149
3150Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3151been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3152configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3153permanently REMOVED.
3154
3155AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3156A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3157AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3158AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3159AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3160
b4ceaee6 3161testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3162
e2caac18
AC
3163* REMOVED configurations and files
3164
3165TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3166WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3167PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3168PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3169PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3170Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3171Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3172 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3173SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3174Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3175Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3176ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3177Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3178
c2a727fa
TT
3179* Changes to command line processing
3180
3181The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3182for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3183
467d8519
TT
3184* Changes to key bindings
3185
3186There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3187
7072a954
AC
3188*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3189
3190Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3191
3192Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3193corrupted.
3194
3195Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3196
3197Numerous documentation fixes.
3198
3199Numerous testsuite fixes.
3200
34f47bc4 3201*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3202
3203* New native configurations
3204
3205Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3206x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3207MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3208MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3209ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3210s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3211
bf64bfd6
AC
3212* New targets
3213
def90278 3214Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3215CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3216UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3217
17e78a56 3218* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3219
3220x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3221Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3222Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3223 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3224TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3225WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3226Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3227PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3228PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3229PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3230SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3231Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3232ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3233Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3234
17e78a56
AC
3235stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3236kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3237
7fcca85b
AC
3238Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3239been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3240configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3241permanently REMOVED.
3242
a196c81c 3243* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3244
3245Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3246Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3247Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3248ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3249Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3250ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3251
6d6b80e5 3252* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3253
6d6b80e5 3254GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3255sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3256present.
3257
bf64bfd6
AC
3258* Other news:
3259
e23194cb
EZ
3260* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3261
3262* The MI enabled by default.
3263
3264The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3265revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3266engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3267using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3268which is now deprecated.
3269
3270* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3271
3272GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3273main features are supported:
3274
3275 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3276
3277 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3278 extension;
3279
3280 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3281
3282 - a Pascal expression parser.
3283
3284However, some important features are not yet supported.
3285
3286 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3287
3288 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3289
3290 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3291 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3292
3293 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3294
3295 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3296
3297* Changes in completion.
3298
3299Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3300to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3301users expect at the shell prompt.
3302
3303Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3304`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3305program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3306files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3307be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3308considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3309name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3310
3311`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3312
3313* New platform-independent commands:
3314
3315It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3316hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3317documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3318
3319* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3320
d7275149
MK
3321Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3322revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3323many threads as your system allows you to have.
3324
e23194cb
EZ
3325Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3326
d7275149
MK
3327Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3328multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3329
3330* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3331
3332Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3333
e23194cb
EZ
3334GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3335debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3336supported.)
3337
3338* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3339
3340Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3341breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3342implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3343put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3344and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3345registers.
3346
3347The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3348debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3349watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3350
3351* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3352
3353New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3354the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3355
3356New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3357display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3358IDT.
3359
3360New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3361from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3362New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3363a given linear address.
3364
3365GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3366program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3367which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3368
3369DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3370
6c56c069
EZ
3371It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3372
e23194cb
EZ
3373* Changes in documentation.
3374
3375All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3376Documentation License.
3377
3378Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3379manual.
3380
3381TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3382
3383Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3384manual.
3385
3386The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3387documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3388hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3389
5d6640b1
AC
3390* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3391
3392The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3393``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3394contents of this file.
3395
1a1d8446
AC
3396* gdba.el deleted
3397
3398GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3399
9debab2f 3400*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3401
c63ce875
EZ
3402* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3403
3404Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3405programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3406displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3407greater level of detail.
3408
3409* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3410
3411It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3412bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3413on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3414written.
3415
3416* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3417
3418The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3419necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3420machines ``out of the box''.
3421
3422The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3423possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3424signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3425would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3426interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3427
3428It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3429standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3430even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3431and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3432terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3433
3434The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3435enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3436also works.
3437
3438DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3439GDB.
3440
3441It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3442directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3443times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3444breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3445
ed9a39eb
JM
3446* New native configurations
3447
3448ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3449PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3450
7a292a7a
SS
3451* New targets
3452
96baa820 3453Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3454x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3455PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3456TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3457
085dd6e6
JM
3458* OBSOLETE configurations
3459
3460Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3461Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3462Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3463ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3464Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3465
9debab2f
AC
3466Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3467but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3468these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3469be permanently REMOVED.
3470
5330533d
SS
3471* Gould support removed
3472
3473Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3474
bc9e5bbf
AC
3475* New features for SVR4
3476
3477On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3478without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3479load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3480
3481* Many C++ enhancements
3482
3483C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3484in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3485
adf40b2e
JM
3486* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3487
3488A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3489sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3490with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3491``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3492
3493 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3494 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3495
43e526b9
JM
3496* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3497
3498A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3499expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3500instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3501
3502The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3503added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3504
96baa820
JM
3505* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3506
3507The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3508``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3509include ``set remote P-packet''.
3510
11cf8741
JM
3511* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3512
3513The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3514accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3515``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3516
7876dd43
DB
3517* ``apropos'' command added.
3518
3519The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3520documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3521try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3522
bc9e5bbf
AC
3523* New MI interface
3524
3525A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3526interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3527process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3528"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3529enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3530
3531 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3532
c906108c
SS
3533*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3534
3535* New native configurations
3536
3537HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3538HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3539M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3540
3541* New targets
3542
3543Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3544Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3545Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3546
3547* OBSOLETE configurations
3548
3549Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3550
3551Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3552but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3553these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3554be permanently REMOVED.
3555
3556* ANSI/ISO C
3557
3558As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3559buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3560containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3561use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3562available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3563configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3564information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3565already.
3566
3567* Readline 2.2
3568
3569GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3570
3571* set extension-language
3572
3573You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3574languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3575you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3576 set extension-language .c c++
3577The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3578and their associated languages.
3579
3580* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3581
3582When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3583you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3584PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3585
3586 set processor NAME
3587
3588sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3589following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3590
3591 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3592 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3593 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3594 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3595 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3596 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3597 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3598 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3599 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3600 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3601 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3602
3603At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3604special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3605registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3606only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3607
3608* HP-UX support
3609
3610Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3611more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3612library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3613support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3614for xdb and dbx commands.
3615
3616* Catchpoints
3617
3618HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3619generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3620to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3621
3622This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3623argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3624output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3625
3626* Debugging across forks
3627
3628On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3629in the inferior.
3630
3631* TUI
3632
3633HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3634it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3635configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3636
3637* GDB remote protocol additions
3638
3639A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3640Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3641fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3642allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3643
3644For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3645full 64-bit address. The command
3646
3647 set remoteaddresssize 32
3648
3649can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3650the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3651will be discarded.
3652
3653In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3654command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3655
3656 maint packet heythere
3657
3658sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3659disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3660time.
3661
3662The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3663target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3664downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3665
3666* Tracing can collect general expressions
3667
3668You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3669further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3670doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3671
3672* mask-address variable for Mips
3673
3674For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3675a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3676of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3677
3678* Higher serial baud rates
3679
3680GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3681230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3682to achieve all of these rates.)
3683
3684* i960 simulator
3685
3686The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3687builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3688
3689
3690*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3691
3692* New native configurations
3693
3694Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3695Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3696Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3697PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3698PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3699Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3700Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3701
3702* New targets
3703
3704Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3705Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3706Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3707Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3708MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3709MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3710MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3711Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3712Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3713Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3714NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3715
3716* New debugging protocols
3717
3718ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3719M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3720DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3721PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3722PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3723Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3724
3725* DWARF 2
3726
3727All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3728format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3729information.
3730
3731* Java frontend
3732
3733GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3734only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3735
3736* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3737
3738For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3739loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3740locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3741
3742* Live range splitting
3743
3744GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3745range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3746more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3747
3748* Hurd support
3749
3750GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3751updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3752
3753* ARM Thumb support
3754
3755GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3756instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3757instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3758accordingly.
3759
3760* MIPS16 support
3761
3762GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3763instruction set.
3764
3765* Overlay support
3766
3767GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3768linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3769will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3770control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3771additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3772in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3773
3774* info symbol
3775
3776The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3777the symbol at the specified address.
3778
3779* Trace support
3780
3781The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3782asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3783extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3784includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3785file tracepoint.c for more details.
3786
3787* MIPS simulator
3788
3789Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3790by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3791of most MIPS variants.
3792
3793* Sparc simulator
3794
3795Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3796by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3797Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3798
3799* set architecture
3800
3801For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3802basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3803architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3804the possible architectures.
3805
3806*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3807
3808* New native configurations
3809
3810Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3811M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3812PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3813PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3814PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3815RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3816
3817* New targets
3818
3819ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3820I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3821MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3822MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3823PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3824Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3825Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3826
3827* PowerPC simulator
3828
3829The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3830contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3831PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3832basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3833performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3834
3835* Solaris 2.5
3836
3837GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3838
3839* Windows 95/NT native
3840
3841GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3842To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3843which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3844Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3845ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3846
3847* dont-repeat command
3848
3849If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3850command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3851useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3852extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3853
3854* Send break instead of ^C
3855
3856The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3857rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3858GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3859
3860* Remote protocol timeout
3861
3862The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3863that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3864to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3865
3866* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3867
3868By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3869loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3870stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3871when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3872in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3873
3874Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3875/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3876automatically on hpux10.
3877
3878* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3879
3880Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3881
3882* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3883
3884When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3885may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3886the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3887every character. The default value is 1050.
3888
3889* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3890
3891If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3892a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3893replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3894details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3895remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3896to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3897
3898* Speedups for remote debugging
3899
3900GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3901the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3902and more efficient S-record downloading.
3903
3904* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3905
3906GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3907Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3908
3909*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3910
3911* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3912
3913The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3914can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3915
3916* Remote targets use caching
3917
3918Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3919remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3920it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3921debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3922off' turns the the data cache off.
3923
3924* Remote targets may have threads
3925
3926The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3927in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3928gdb/remote.c for details.
3929
3930* NetROM support
3931
3932If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3933support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3934acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3935write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3936support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3937another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3938sequence is something like
3939
3940 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3941 load <prog>
3942 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3943
3944* Macintosh host
3945
3946GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3947may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3948it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3949available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3950device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3951directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3952scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3953mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3954
3955* Autoconf
3956
3957GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3958but does simplify configuration and building.
3959
3960* hpux10
3961
3962GDB now supports hpux10.
3963
3964*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3965
3966* New native configurations
3967
3968x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3969x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3970NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3971Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3972
3973* New targets
3974
3975A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3976HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3977CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3978PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3979WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3980
3981* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3982
3983GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3984possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3985filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3986the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3987if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3988
3989* Arguments to user-defined commands
3990
3991User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3992Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3993trivial example:
3994define adder
3995 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3996
3997To execute the command use:
3998adder 1 2 3
3999
4000Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4001Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4002use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4003
4004* New `if' and `while' commands
4005
4006This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4007commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4008expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4009execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4010terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4011`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4012if the expression is zero.
4013
4014* Fortran source language mode
4015
4016GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4017Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4018variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4019with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4020Fortran compilers.
4021
4022* Better HPUX support
4023
4024Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4025running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4026processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4027for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4028that behavior do the following before running the program:
4029
4030 adb -w a.out
4031 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4032 control-d
4033
4034This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4035To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4036
4037 adb -w a.out
4038 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4039 control-d
4040
4041You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4042the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4043external linkage.
4044
4045GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4046HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4047
4048* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4049
4050You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4051commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4052current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4053"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4054associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4055configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4056
4057* New DOS host serial code
4058
4059This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4060no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4061a PC's serial port.
4062
4063*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4064
4065* New "complete" command
4066
4067This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4068were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4069
4070* Trailing space optional in prompt
4071
4072"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4073allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4074
4075* Breakpoint hit counts
4076
4077"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4078has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4079can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4080to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4081less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4082that breakpoint.
4083
4084* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4085
4086"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4087an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4088arrays actually contain only short strings.
4089
4090* Shared library breakpoints
4091
4092In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4093breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4094
4095* Hardware watchpoints
4096
4097There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4098targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4099
55241689 4100Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4101
4102* Annotations
4103
4104Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4105and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4106
4107* Improved Irix 5 support
4108
4109GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4110
4111* Improved HPPA support
4112
4113GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4114
4115* New native configurations
4116
4117Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4118HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4119Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4120RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4121
4122* New targets
4123
4124OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4125MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4126Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4127
4128* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4129
4130There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4131This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4132
4133* Fixes
4134
4135As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4136and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4137
4138*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4139
4140* Irix 5 is now supported
4141
4142* HPPA support
4143
4144GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4145to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4146GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4147of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4148can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4149
4150
4151*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4152
4153* User visible changes:
4154
4155* Remote Debugging
4156
4157The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4158target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4159debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4160integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4161debugging info for the mips target).
4162
4163* DEC Alpha native support
4164
4165GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4166debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4167work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4168Alpha-specific notes.
4169
4170* Preliminary thread implementation
4171
4172GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4173
4174* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4175
4176This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4177to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4178for details).
4179
4180* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4181
4182This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4183mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4184call methods, ...etc.
4185
4186*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4187
4188 * User visible changes:
4189
4190Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4191supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4192other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4193somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4194
4195Filename completion now works.
4196
4197When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4198arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4199addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4200
4201All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4202vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4203should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4204your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4205to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4206
4207 * DEC alpha support
4208
4209This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4210cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4211
4212
4213*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4214
4215 * Testsuite
4216
4217This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4218The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4219via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4220
4221 * C++ demangling
4222
4223'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4224emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4225Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4226disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4227use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4228
4229 * Simulators
4230
4231GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4232So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4233Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4234
4235 * New targets supported
4236
4237H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4238H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4239SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4240Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4241IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4242
4243Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4244version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4245GO32 memory extender.
4246
4247 * New remote protocols
4248
4249MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4250
4251 * New source languages supported
4252
4253This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4254used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4255into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4256
4257
4258*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4259
4260 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4261
4262GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4263version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4264University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4265compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4266format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4267(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4268
4269Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4270
4271 * Faster and better demangling
4272
4273We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4274demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4275character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4276only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4277This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4278increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4279symbol lookups.
4280
4281`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4282from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4283compiler does not actually implement.
4284
4285 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4286
4287In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4288inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4289recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4290very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4291The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4292circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4293fix.
4294
4295The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4296release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4297
4298 * Improved configure script
4299
4300The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4301you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4302host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4303done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4304
4305We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4306version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4307`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4308The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4309only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4310We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4311
4312 * Documentation improvements
4313
4314There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4315produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4316before submitting changes.
4317
4318The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4319M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4320`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4321you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4322a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4323
4324*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4325We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4326been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4327or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4328`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4329around this problem.
4330
4331 * New features
4332
4333GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4334the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4335`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4336the target program.
4337
4338The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4339how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4340
4341 * New native hosts supported
4342
4343HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4344386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4345
4346 * New targets supported
4347
4348AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4349
4350 * New file formats supported
4351
4352BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4353HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4354
4355 * Major bug fixes
4356
4357Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4358
4359We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4360printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4361
4362We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4363for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4364release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4365
4366You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4367will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4368
4369We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4370for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4371especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4372libraries.
4373
4374The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4375information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4376command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4377any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4378when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4379
4380 * Internal improvements
4381
4382GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4383debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4384
4385GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4386Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4387symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4388contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4389shared code that handles any of them.
4390
4391 * New command line options
4392
4393We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4394
4395 * Mmalloc licensing
4396
4397The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4398General Public License.
4399
4400*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4401
4402 * Host/native/target split
4403
4404GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4405hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4406target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4407local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4408ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4409
4410The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4411GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4412is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4413code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4414any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4415built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4416handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4417
4418GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4419It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4420plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4421
4422 * New hosts supported
4423
4424HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4425386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4426386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4427
4428 * New targets supported
4429
4430Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
443168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4432
4433 * New native hosts supported
4434
4435386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4436 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4437386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4438
4439 * New file formats supported
4440
4441BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4442supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4443format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4444
4445 * New commands
4446
4447`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4448`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4449These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4450
4451`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4452
4453You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4454scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4455prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4456executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4457
4458 * C++ improvements
4459
4460We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4461info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4462symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4463
4464Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4465
4466 * Major bug fixes
4467
4468The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4469fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4470by the compiler.
4471
4472We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4473support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4474
4475John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4476slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4477that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4478purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4479the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4480mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4481
4482Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4483about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4484completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4485we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4486
4487 * AMD 29k support
4488
4489A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4490specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4491calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4492usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4493in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4494
4495We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4496Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4497of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4498resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4499
4500 * Remote interfaces
4501
4502We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4503with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4504message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4505This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4506needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4507breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4508each instruction being stepped through.
4509
4510The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4511registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4512
4513There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4514find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4515Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4516processor with a serial port.
4517
4518 * Configuration
4519
4520Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4521`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4522supported, and what files each one uses.
4523
4524 * Library changes
4525
4526There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4527disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4528Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4529disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4530
4531The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4532Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4533can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4534grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4535
4536 * Documentation
4537
4538The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4539reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4540as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4541encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4542system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4543bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4544
4545And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4546
4547
4548*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4549
4550 * Better support for C++ function names
4551
4552GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4553names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4554(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4555single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4556Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4557
4558GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4559the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4560You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4561lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4562for the list of formats.
4563
4564 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4565
4566Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4567C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4568directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4569can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4570usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4571about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4572this problem.)
4573
4574 * New 'maintenance' command
4575
4576All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4577the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4578can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4579
4580 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4581 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4582 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4583 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4584 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4585 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4586
4587The following commands are new:
4588
4589 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4590 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4591 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4592
4593 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4594
4595We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4596(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4597be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4598read after argv processing.
4599
4600 * New hosts supported
4601
4602Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4603
55241689 4604GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4605
4606We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4607is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4608for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4609masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4610fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4611It costs extra.
4612
4613 * New targets supported
4614
4615Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4616
4617 * More smarts about finding #include files
4618
4619GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4620all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4621greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4622especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4623the one that contains your sources.
4624
4625We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4626breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4627try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4628
4629 * Interesting infernals change
4630
4631GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4632section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4633target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4634stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4635
4636 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4637
4638There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4639 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4640 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4641
4642See the ChangeLog for details.
4643
4644*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4645
4646 * New machines supported (host and target)
4647
4648IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4649
4650SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4651
4652 * New malloc package
4653
4654GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4655Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4656capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4657This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4658pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4659more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4660
4661 * info proc
4662
4663The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4664'help info proc' for details.
4665
4666 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4667
4668The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4669Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4670possible.
4671
4672 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4673
4674Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4675support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4676conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4677environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4678that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4679in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4680
4681 * Cross byte order fixes
4682
4683Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4684targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4685
4686 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4687
4688If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4689system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4690`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4691program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4692called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4693Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4694and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4695the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4696option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4697starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4698
4699You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4700the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4701information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4702slower, but makes future operations faster.
4703
4704The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4705build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4706A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4707use is:
4708
4709 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4710
4711The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4712It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4713shared across multiple host platforms.
4714
4715 * longjmp() handling
4716
4717GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4718siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4719all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4720platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4721
4722 * Solaris 2.0
4723
4724Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4725this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4726reading symbols.
4727
4728 * Bug fixes
4729
4730As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4731People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4732crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4733
4734*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4735
4736 * New machines supported (host and target)
4737
4738SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4739 (except core files)
4740BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4741Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4742
4743 * New machines supported (target)
4744
4745AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4746
4747 * C++ support
4748
4749GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4750The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4751per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4752
4753GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4754`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4755extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4756good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4757will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4758released.
4759
4760 * New features for SVR4
4761
4762GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4763shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4764only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4765
4766The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4767on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4768it prints the address mappings of the process.
4769
4770If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4771bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4772
4773 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4774
4775Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4776now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4777skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4778make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4779same code linked statically.
4780
4781 * New Getopt
4782
4783GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4784version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4785continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4786Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4787added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4788future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4789
4790 * Bugs fixed
4791
4792The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4793Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4794See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4795
4796
4797*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4798
4799 * New machines supported (host and target)
4800
4801Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4802NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4803Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4804
4805 * Almost SCO Unix support
4806
4807We had hoped to support:
4808SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4809(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4810that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4811about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4812
4813 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4814
4815GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4816debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4817is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4818send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4819reqired (if any).
4820
4821 * New Readline
4822
4823GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4824is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4825required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4826
4827 * Bugs fixed
4828
4829The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4830Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4831See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4832
4833 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4834
4835GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4836supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4837symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4838
4839Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4840mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4841debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4842mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4843version 2.
4844
4845Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4846really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4847line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4848variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4849situation somewhat.
4850
4851When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4852However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4853methods.
4854
4855We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4856DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4857encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4858
4859
4860*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4861
4862 * Improved configuration
4863
4864Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4865Porting BFD is simpler.
4866
4867 * Stepping improved
4868
4869The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4870of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4871in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4872function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4873
4874 * Bug fixing
4875
4876Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4877
4878 * New host supported (not target)
4879
4880Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4881
4882
4883*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4884
4885 * Multiple source language support
4886
4887GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4888It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4889and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4890language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4891You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4892`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4893
4894 * GDB and Modula-2
4895
4896GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4897currently under development at the State University of New York at
4898Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4899continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4900
4901Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4902debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4903symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4904
4905There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4906in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4907
4908 * set write on/off
4909
4910GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4911a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4912the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4913by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4914effect immediately.
4915
4916 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4917
4918When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4919shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4920The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4921examining core files.
4922
4923 * set listsize
4924
4925You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4926The default is 10.
4927
4928 * New machines supported (host and target)
4929
4930SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4931Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4932Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4933
4934 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4935
4936IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4937
4938 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4939
4940AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4941AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4942Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4943
4944 * New remote interfaces
4945
4946AMD 29000 Adapt
4947AMD 29000 Minimon
4948
4949
4950*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4951
4952 * New Facilities
4953
4954Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4955
4956Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4957target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4958is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4959remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4960remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4961also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4962using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4963stub on the target system.
4964
4965New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4966
4967GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4968library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4969object file types such as a.out and coff.
4970
4971There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4972refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4973
4974
4975 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4976
4977All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4978by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4979
4980For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4981``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4982Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4983
4984What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4985print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4986will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4987all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4988
4989confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4990 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4991 it is already running. Default is ON.
4992
4993editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4994 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4995 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4996 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4997 Default is ON.
4998
4999history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5000 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5001 or the value of the environment variable
5002 GDBHISTFILE.
5003
5004history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5005 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5006 HISTSIZE.
5007
5008history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5009 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5010 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5011
5012history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5013 history expansion will be performed on
5014 command line input. The default is OFF.
5015
5016radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5017 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5018 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5019
5020height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5021 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5022 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5023 variable TERM.
5024
5025width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5026 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5027 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5028 variable TERM.
5029
5030Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5031``set width'' instead.
5032
5033print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5034 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5035 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5036 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5037
5038print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5039 is OFF.
5040
5041print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5042 "raw" form if off.
5043
5044print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5045 like instructions.
5046
5047print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5048
5049
5050 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5051
5052The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5053new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5054are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5055window.
5056
5057
5058 * Support for Shared Libraries
5059
5060GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5061Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5062before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5063happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5064At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5065from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5066shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5067It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5068
5069sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5070 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5071 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5072
5073info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5074
5075
5076 * Watchpoints
5077
5078A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5079expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5080tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5081quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5082problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5083more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5084
5085watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5086
5087info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5088
5089delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5090disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5091enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5092
5093
5094 * C++ multiple inheritance
5095
5096When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5097for C++ programs.
5098
5099 * C++ exception handling
5100
5101Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5102ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5103the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5104handler's context).
5105
5106catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5107 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5108 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5109
5110info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5111 current stack frame.
5112
5113
5114 * Minor command changes
5115
5116The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5117command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5118is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5119
5120The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5121at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5122frames without printing.
5123
5124 * New directory command
5125
5126'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5127The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5128about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5129with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5130find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5131
5132 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5133
5134For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5135for more details.
5136
5137GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5138two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5139Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5140where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.960384 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.