Remove Vax Ultrix and VAX BSD support
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.8
5
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6* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
7
5f3b99cf 8* Python Scripting
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9
10 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
11 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
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12 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
13 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
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14 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
15 selecting a new file to debug.
5f3b99cf 16
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17* New Python-based convenience functions:
18
19 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
20 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
21 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
22 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
23
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24* New commands
25
26queue-signal signal-name-or-number
27 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
28
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29* On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
30 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
31 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
32 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
33 at resume time.
34
35* Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
36 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
37 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
38 switched threads meanwhile.
39
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40* "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
41
42 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
43 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
44 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
45 is now the default mode.
46
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47* MI changes
48
49 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
50 inferiors that have exited.
51
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52* Removed targets
53
54Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
55
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56Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
57SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
58SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
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59VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
60VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3831839c 61
919b9a93 62*** Changes in GDB 7.8
e9475ead 63
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64* New command line options
65
66-D data-directory
67 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
68
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69* GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
70 as specified in ISO C99.
71
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72* The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
73 with or without disassembly.
b7bba001 74
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75* Guile scripting
76
77 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
78 available is determined at configure time.
79 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
80 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
81
82* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
83
84guile [code]
85gu [code]
86 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
87
88guile-repl
89gr
90 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
91
92info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
93 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
94
95* The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
96 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
97
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98* New options
99
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100set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
101show print symbol-loading
102 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
103 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
104 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
105 becomes less useful.
106
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107set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
108show guile print-stack
109 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
110
111set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
112show auto-load guile-scripts
113 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
114
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115maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
116maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
117 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
118 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
119 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
120 usage of this option.
121
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122set auto-connect-native-target
123
124 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
125 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
126 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
127
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128set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
129show record btrace replay-memory-access
130 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
131
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132maint set target-async (on|off)
133maint show target-async
134 This controls whether GDB targets operate in syncronous or
135 asyncronous mode. Normally the default is asyncronous, if it is
136 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
137 occurring only in syncronous mode.
138
139set mi-async (on|off)
140show mi-async
141 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
142 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
143
144* "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
145 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
146
147* Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
148 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
149 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
150 "set target-async on" command.
151
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152* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
153
154 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
155 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
156 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
157 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
158 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
159
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160* The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
161 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
162 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
163
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164* The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
165 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
166 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
167 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
168 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
169 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
170 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
171
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172* The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
173 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
174
066ce621 175* The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
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176 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
177 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
066ce621 178
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179* The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
180 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
181 memory or registers.
182
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183* The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
184
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185* The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
186 remote. It now works with all targets.
187
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188* All native targets are now consistently called "native".
189 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
190 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
191 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
192 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
193 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
194 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
195 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
196 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
197 target-stack".
198
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199* The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
200 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
201 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
202
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203* GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
204
205* Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
206 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
207 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
208
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209* New remote packets
210
211qXfer:btrace:read's annex
212 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
213 branch trace incrementally.
214
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215* Python Scripting
216
217 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
218 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
219 available.
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220 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
221 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
222 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
223 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
224 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
f7bd0f78 225
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226* New targets
227PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
228
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229* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
230 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
231 its alias "share", instead.
232
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233* The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
234 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
235 instead.
236
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237* MI changes
238
239 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
240 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
241 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
242 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
243 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
244 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
245 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
246 commands and CLI execution commands.
247
b7bba001 248*** Changes in GDB 7.7
2d450646 249
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250* Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
251 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
252 recording has been added.
253
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254* GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
255
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256* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
257 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
258
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259* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
260 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
261 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
262 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
263 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
264 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
265 "void".
266
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267* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
268
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269* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
270
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271* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
272 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
273 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
274 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
275
276 (gdb) p $rax
277 $1 = <not saved>
278
279 (gdb) info registers rax
280 rax <not saved>
281
282 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
283 "*value not available*".
284
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285* New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
286 to binaries.
287
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288* Python scripting
289
290 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
f76c27b5 291 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
bc79de95 292 ** Line tables representation has been added.
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293 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
294 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
c0d48811 295 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1e611234 296
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297* New targets
298
299Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
300Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 301Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 302
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303* Removed native configurations
304
305Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
306been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
307
308arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
309i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
310i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
311i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
312m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
313sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
314vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
315
bd712aed 316* New commands:
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317catch rethrow
318 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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319maint check-psymtabs
320 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
321maint check-symtabs
322 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
323maint expand-symtabs
324 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 325
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326show configuration
327 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
328
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329maint set|show per-command
330maint set|show per-command space
331maint set|show per-command time
332maint set|show per-command symtab
333 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
334
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335remove-symbol-file FILENAME
336remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
337 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
338 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
339 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
340
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341info exceptions
342info exceptions REGEXP
343 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
344 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
345 are listed.
346
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347* New options
348
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349set debug symfile off|on
350show debug symfile
351 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
352 symbol tables within those files
353
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354set print raw frame-arguments
355show print raw frame-arguments
356 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
357 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
358
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359set remote trace-status-packet
360show remote trace-status-packet
361 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
362
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363set debug nios2
364show debug nios2
365 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
366
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367set range-stepping
368show range-stepping
369 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
370
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371set startup-with-shell
372show startup-with-shell
373 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
374 directly.
375
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376set code-cache
377show code-cache
378 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
379 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
380
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381* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
382 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
383 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
384 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
385 "set height 0".
386
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387* The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
388 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
389 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
390
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391* New command-line options
392--configuration
393 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
394
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395* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
396 buffer in Common Trace Format.
397
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398* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
399 GDB command gcore.
400
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401* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
402
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403* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
404 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
405
406* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
407 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
408
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409* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
410 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
411 due to an uncaught signal.
412
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413* MI changes
414
403cb6b1 415 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
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416 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
417 command, which should contain "language-option".
403cb6b1 418
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419 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
420 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
421
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422 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
423 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
424 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
425 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
426 "undefined-command-error-code".
427
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428 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
429 Trace Format now.
430
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431 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
432
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433 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
434 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
435 are displayed.
436
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437 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
438 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
439
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440 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
441 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
442 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
443
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444 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
445 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
446 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
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447 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
448 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
449 "exec-run-start-option".
5713b9b5 450
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451 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
452 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
453
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454 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
455 the new "info exceptions" command.
456
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457* New system-wide configuration scripts
458 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
459 configuration scripts for the following systems:
460 ** ElinOS
461 ** Wind River Linux
462
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463* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
464 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
465 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
466 below.
467
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468* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
469 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
470
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471* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
472 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
473 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
474
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475* New remote packets
476
477vCont;r
478
479 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
480 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
481 involvemement at each single-step.
482
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483qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
484 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
485 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
486 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
487 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
488 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
489 speedup.
490
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491* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
492
493 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
494 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
495
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496 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
497 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
498 trace state variables.
499
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500 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
501 target.
502
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503* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
504 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
505
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506* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
507
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508* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
509 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
510 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
511 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
512
2d450646 513*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 514
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515* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
516 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
517 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
518 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
519
520set|show record full insn-number-max
521set|show record full stop-at-limit
522set|show record full memory-query
523
524* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
525 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
526 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
527 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
528 This new recording method can be enabled using:
529
530record btrace
531
532 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
533 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
534
535* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
536 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
537 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
538
539record instruction-history prints the execution history at
540 instruction granularity
541
542record function-call-history prints the execution history at
543 function granularity
544
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545* New native configurations
546
51d66578 547ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 548FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 549x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 550Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 551
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552* New targets
553
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554ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
555ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 556Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 557x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 558Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 559
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560* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
561 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
562 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
563 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
564 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
565 --data-directory command-line option.
566
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567* New command line options:
568
569-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
570 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
571
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572* Removed command line options
573
574-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
575 Emacs.
576
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577* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
578 type formatting.
579
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580* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
581
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582* Python scripting
583
584 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
585
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586 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
587
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588 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
589
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590 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
591
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592 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
593 of architecture in the Python API.
594
595 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
596 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
597
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DE
598* New Python-based convenience functions:
599
600 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
601 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
602 ** $_strlen(str)
603 ** $_regex(str, regex)
604
f3c8a52a
JK
605* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
606 given an argument.
607
1605ef26
TT
608* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
609 default for GCC since November 2000.
610
504b36fd
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611* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
612
f2a8bc8a
YQ
613* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
614 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
615
23a80689
JB
616* New configure options
617
618--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
619 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
620 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
621 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
622 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
623 options allow the user to override that default.
393fd4c3
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624--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
625 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
626 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 627
d6b28940
TT
628* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
629
ab04a2af
TT
630catch signal
631 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
632 conditions to be attached.
633
d6b28940
TT
634maint info bfds
635 List the BFDs known to GDB.
636
8315665e
YPK
637python-interactive [command]
638pi [command]
639 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
640 and print the result of expressions.
641
642py [command]
643 "py" is a new alias for "python".
644
18a9fc12
TT
645enable type-printer [name]...
646disable type-printer [name]...
647 Enable or disable type printers.
648
aa9259cc
TS
649* Removed commands
650
651 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
652 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
653 instead.
654
53342f27
TT
655* New options
656
657set print type methods (on|off)
658show print type methods
659 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
660 The default is to show them.
661
662set print type typedefs (on|off)
663show print type typedefs
664 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
665 The default is to show them.
666
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667set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
668show filename-display
669 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
670 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
671
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672set trace-buffer-size
673show trace-buffer-size
674 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
675
a46c1e42
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676set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
677show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
678 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
679
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680set debug aarch64
681show debug aarch64
682 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
683 The default is off.
684
685set debug coff-pe-read
686show debug coff-pe-read
687 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
688 exported symbols.
689
690set debug mach-o
691show debug mach-o
692 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
693 processing.
694
695set debug notification
696show debug notification
697 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
698
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YQ
699* MI changes
700
701 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
702 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
703 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
704 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
134a2066
YQ
705 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
706 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
707 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
82a90ccf
YQ
708 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
709 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
8de0566d
YQ
710 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
711 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 712 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 713 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
62747a60
TT
714 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
715 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3fa7bf06
MG
716 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
717 library load/unload events.
f2a8bc8a
YQ
718 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
719 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
720 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
f5911ea1
HAQ
721 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
722 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
723 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
ec83d211
JK
724 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
725 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 726
608e2dbb
TT
727* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
728 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
729 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
730 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
731
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HAQ
732* New remote packets
733
734QTBuffer:size
735 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
736 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
737
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MM
738Qbtrace:bts
739 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
740 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
741 qSupported query.
742
743Qbtrace:off
744 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
745 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
746
747qXfer:btrace:read
748 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
749 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
750
80c8d323 751*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 752
1b3371b1
L
753* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
754 for more x32 ABI info.
755
d0e64392
MR
756* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
757
4cc0665f
MR
758* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
759
85d4a676
SS
760* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
761 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
762 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
763 "info os files" lists file descriptors
764 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
765 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
766 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
767 "info os msg" lists message queues
768 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
769
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SDJ
770* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
771 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
772 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
773 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
774 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
775 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
776
72508ac0
PO
777* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
778 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
779 record/replay support.
780
16899756
DE
781* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
782
4795f398
DE
783* Python scripting
784
7d74f244
DE
785 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
786 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
787
4795f398
DE
788 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
789
50897289
TT
790 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
791 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
792
64e7d9dd
TT
793 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
794
795 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
796 the source at which the symbol was defined.
797
f0823d2c
TT
798 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
799 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
800 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
801 symbol's value.
802
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SCR
803 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
804 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
805
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SCR
806 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
807 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
808 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
809
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SCR
810 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
811 object associated with a PC value.
812
ee0bf529
SCR
813 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
814 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
815
a766d390
DE
816* Go language support.
817 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
818 language.
819
e0f9f062
DE
820* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
821 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
822
217bff3e
JK
823* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
824 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
825
cafec441
TT
826* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
827 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
828 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
829 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
830 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
831 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
832
4aac40c8
TT
833* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
834 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
835 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
836 build/libcpp/expr.c.
837
d99bd577
UW
838* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
839 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
840
53fe1783
GB
841* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
842 since December 2007.
843
e41eec66
JB
844* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
845 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
846 command does. For instance:
847
848 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
849
850 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
851 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
852 created, using the "condition" command.
853
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YQ
854* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
855 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
856
481860b3
GB
857* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
858
859* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
860 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
861 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
862 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
863 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
864 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
865 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
866 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 867
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DE
868 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
869 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
870 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
871 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
872 the .gdb_index section.
873
927fbba6
JB
874* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
875
20388dd6
YQ
876* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
877 target.
878
f3e0e960
SS
879* MI changes
880
881 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
882
37ce89eb
SS
883 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
884
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TT
885* New commands
886
e615022a
DE
887 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
888 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
889 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
890
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TT
891 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
892 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
893
816338b5
SS
894 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
895 several hits.
896
57651221 897 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
898 C++ and Java objects.
899
06fc020f 900 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
6ea71545 901 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
06fc020f
SCR
902 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
903 configured with '--with-python'.
904
bf88dd68
JK
905 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
906 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
907 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
908 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
909 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
910 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
911 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
912
913 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
914 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
915 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
916 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
917
e7e0cddf
SS
918 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
919 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
920 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
921 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
922
9cb709b6
TT
923 ** "set print symbol"
924 "show print symbol"
925 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
926 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
927 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
928
2d4c29c5
TS
929* Deprecated commands
930
931 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
932 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
933
a58b110a
KB
934* New targets
935
936Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 937HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 938
72895ff6
LM
939* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
940 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
941 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
942 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
943 evaluates to true.
944
945* New options
946
4cc0665f
MR
947set mips compression
948show mips compression
949 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
950 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
951 mips16
952 micromips
953 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
954
72895ff6
LM
955set breakpoint condition-evaluation
956show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 957 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
958 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
959 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
960 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
961 target.
962
bf88dd68
JK
963set auto-load off
964 Disable auto-loading globally.
965
966show auto-load
967 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
968
969set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
970show auto-load gdb-scripts
971 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
972
973set auto-load python-scripts on|off
974show auto-load python-scripts
975 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
976
977set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
978show auto-load local-gdbinit
979 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
980
981set auto-load libthread-db on|off
982show auto-load libthread-db
983 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
984
7349ff92 985set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 986show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
987 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
988 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
989 of the directories listed by this option.
990 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
991
bccbefd2
JK
992set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
993show auto-load safe-path
994 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
995 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
996
4dc84fd1
JK
997set debug auto-load on|off
998show debug auto-load
999 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1000
d3ce09f5 1001set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 1002show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
1003 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1004 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1005 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1006 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
1007
1008set dprintf-function <expr>
1009show dprintf-function
1010set dprintf-channel <expr>
1011show dprintf-channel
1012 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1013 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1014
d3ce09f5
SS
1015set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1016show disconnected-dprintf
1017 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1018 after GDB disconnects.
1019
6dea1fbd
JK
1020* New configure options
1021
7349ff92
JK
1022--with-auto-load-dir
1023 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
1024 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1025 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1026 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1027 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 1028
6dea1fbd
JK
1029--with-auto-load-safe-path
1030 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 1031 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
1032
1033--without-auto-load-safe-path
1034 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1035 security feature.
1036
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LM
1037* New remote packets
1038
74c48cbb
PA
1039z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1040
72895ff6
LM
1041 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1042 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1043 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1044 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1045
9b224c5e
PA
1046QProgramSignals:
1047
1048 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1049 program without GDB involvement.
1050
8320cc4f
JK
1051* New command line options
1052
1053--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1054 before loading inferior.
1055--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1056 execute it before loading inferior.
1057
8837a20f
JB
1058*** Changes in GDB 7.4
1059
f8eba3c6
TT
1060* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1061 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1062 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1063 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1064 inferior changes.
1065
1bfeeb0f
JL
1066* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1067 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1068
480a3f21
PW
1069* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1070 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1071 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1072 target hardware watchpoint.
1073
1074 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1075 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1076 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1077 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1078
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PM
1079* Python scripting
1080
32d1c362 1081 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 1082 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
1083 existing one.
1084
3a7bf607 1085 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
1086 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1087 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1088 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1089 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1090 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 1091
baacfb07 1092 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 1093 Python API.
713389e0 1094
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PM
1095 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1096 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 1097 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
1098 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1099 corresponding value.
1100
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PM
1101 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1102 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1103 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1104 on GDB start-up.
1105
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PM
1106 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1107 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1108 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1109 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1110
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DE
1111 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1112
6839b47f
KP
1113 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1114 "gdb.breakpoints".
1115
cc72b2a2
KP
1116 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1117 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1118 available in the CLI.
1119
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PK
1120 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1121 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1122 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1123 "some_type.items()".
1124
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KP
1125 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1126 new object file.
1127
03c3051a
PK
1128 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1129 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1130 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1131 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1132 any anonymous fields.
1133
7376e450
TT
1134* MI changes
1135
1136 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1137 "solib-event".
1138
1139 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1140 "=breakpoint-modified".
1141
1142 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1143
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DE
1144* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1145 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1146 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1147 lives.
1148
1149 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1150 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1151 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1152 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1153 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1154
1155 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1156 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1157
478aac75
DE
1158* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1159 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1160 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1161 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1162 use this option to specify where to find it.
1163
9c06b0b4
TJB
1164* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1165 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1166 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1167 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1168 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1169 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1170 section in the user manual for more details.
1171
03f2bd59
JK
1172* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1173 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1174 become available after that.
1175
71eba9c2 1176* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 1177
2bda9cc5
JK
1178* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1179 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1180 gcc version 4.7.
1181
ed59ded5
DE
1182* New commands
1183
1184!SHELL COMMAND
1185 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1186 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1187
9c06b0b4
TJB
1188* Changed commands
1189
1190watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1191 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1192 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1193
dbaefcf7
DE
1194info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1195 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1196 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1197
71eba9c2 1198info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1199 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1200 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1201 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1202 name starts with a hyphen.
1203
3065dfb6
SS
1204collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1205 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1206 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1207 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1208 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1209 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1210 number of bytes that will be collected.
1211
f196051f
SS
1212tstart [NOTES]
1213 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1214 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1215 setting the variable trace-notes.
1216
1217tstop [NOTES]
1218 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1219 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1220 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1221 trace-stop-notes.
1222
d248b706
KY
1223* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1224 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1225 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1226 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1227 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1228 is running.
1229
405f8e94
SS
1230* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1231 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1232 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1233
2bda9cc5
JK
1234* New options
1235
45cfd468
DE
1236set debug dwarf2-read
1237show debug dwarf2-read
1238 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1239 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1240
1241set debug symtab-create
1242show debug symtab-create
1243 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1244 creation. The default is off.
1245
baacfb07
PM
1246set extended-prompt
1247show extended-prompt
1248 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1249 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1250 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1251 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1252 prompt is displayed.
1253
2bda9cc5
JK
1254set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1255show print entry-values
1256 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1257 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1258 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1259
1260set debug entry-values
1261show debug entry-values
1262 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1263 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1264
c011a4f4
DE
1265set basenames-may-differ
1266show basenames-may-differ
1267 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1268 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1269 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1270 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1271 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1272 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1273 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1274 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1275
f196051f
SS
1276set trace-user
1277show trace-user
1278set trace-notes
1279show trace-notes
1280 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1281 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1282 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1283 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1284
1285set trace-stop-notes
1286show trace-stop-notes
1287 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1288 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1289 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1290 started by someone else.
1291
d248b706
KY
1292* New remote packets
1293
1294QTEnable
1295
1296 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1297
1298QTDisable
1299
1300 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1301
f196051f
SS
1302QTNotes
1303
1304 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1305
1306qTP
1307
1308 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1309
405f8e94
SS
1310qTMinFTPILen
1311
1312 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1313 be placed.
1314
1a532630
PP
1315* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1316 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1317
11315641
YQ
1318* New targets
1319
1320Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1321
87326c78
DD
1322* New Simulators
1323
1324Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1325
e8d56f18
JB
1326*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1327
1328* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1329
d6e00af6 1330*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 1331
60f98dde
MS
1332* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1333 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1334 matches the given regular expression.
1335
eee5b35e
DD
1336* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1337
b716877b
AB
1338* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1339 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1340
aae1c79a
DE
1341* New command line options
1342
1343-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1344 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1345
a86caf66
DE
1346* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1347 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1348
99e7ae30
DE
1349* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1350 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1351 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1352
4694da01
TT
1353* GDB now understands thread names.
1354
1355 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1356 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1357
1358 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1359 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1360
f4b8a18d
KW
1361* OpenCL C
1362 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1363 has been integrated into GDB.
1364
585d1eb8
PM
1365* Python scripting
1366
da5d4055
PM
1367 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1368 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1369 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1370
9a6f1302
PM
1371 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1372 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1373 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1374 and allows for more dynamic content.
1375
29703da4
PM
1376 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1377 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1378 have an is_valid method.
1379
350c6c65
PM
1380 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1381 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1382 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1383
6e6fbe60
DE
1384 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1385
585d1eb8
PM
1386 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1387 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1388 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1389 that function like so:
1390
1391 result = some_value (10,20)
1392
0e3509db
DE
1393 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1394 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1395 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1396
7b51bc51
DE
1397 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1398 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1399 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1400 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1401 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1402
1403 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1404 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1405
99e7ae30
DE
1406 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1407
d8e22779
TT
1408 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1409 selected thread.
1410
4694da01
TT
1411 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1412 holds the thread's name.
1413
505500db
SW
1414 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1415 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1416 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1417 The following events are currently supported:
1418 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1419 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1420 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1421
def98928
TT
1422* C++ Improvements:
1423
1424 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1425 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1426
1427 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1428
1429 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1430 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1431 was added to GCC 4.5.
1432
66cb8159
TT
1433 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1434 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1435 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1436 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1437 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1438 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1439
4aac0db7
UW
1440* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1441 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1442 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1443 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1444 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1445
283e6a52
TT
1446* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1447 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1448 execution to a label.
1449
1450* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1451 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1452 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1453 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1454
b56df873 1455* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1456 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1457 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1458 of scope.
1459
ae53ffa4
PA
1460* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1461
1462 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1463 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1464 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1465 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1466 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1467 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1468
1469 (gdb) info threads
1470 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1471
1472 While now you see this:
1473
1474 (gdb) info threads
1475 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1476
1477 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1478 dumps.
1479
1480 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1481 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1482 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1483 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1484
f1310107
TJB
1485* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1486 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1487 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1488 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1489 section in the user manual for more details.
1490
248c9dbc
JB
1491* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1492
1aee7009
JB
1493 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1494 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1495
eb826dc6
MF
1496 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1497
44603653
JB
1498* New native configurations
1499
1500ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1501
91021223
MF
1502* New targets:
1503
1504Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1505
6e1bb179
JB
1506* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1507 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1508 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1509 in the GDB user manual.
1510
50c97f38
TT
1511* Guile support was removed.
1512
448a92bf
MF
1513* New features in the GNU simulator
1514
1515 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1516
66ee2731
MF
1517 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1518
76b8507d 1519*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1520
ba25b921
PA
1521* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1522
1523 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1524 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1525 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1526 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1527 was always disabled for such configurations.
1528
4656f5c6
SW
1529* C++ Improvements:
1530
1531 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1532
1533 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1534 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1535 For example:
1536 namespace A
1537 {
1538 class B { };
1539 void foo (B) { }
1540 }
1541 ...
1542 A::B b
1543 foo(b)
1544 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1545 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1546 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1547
1548 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1549
1550 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1551 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1552 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1553 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1554 entry.
1555 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1556 mentioned flavors of operators.
1557
254e6b9e
DE
1558 ** static const class members
1559
1560 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1561 class definition has been fixed.
1562
711e434b
PM
1563* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1564
1565 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1566 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1567 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1568 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1569 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1570 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1571
0fb4aa4b
PA
1572* Static tracepoints
1573
1574 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1575 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1576 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1577 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1578 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1579 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1580 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1581 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1582 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1583 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1584 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1585 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1586 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1587 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1588 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1589 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1590 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1591 the "New remote packets" section below.
1592
ca11e899
SS
1593* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1594
1595 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1596 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1597 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1598 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1599
1600* Observer mode
1601
1602 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1603 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1604 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1605 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1606 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1607 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1608 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1609
1610* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1611 current thread.
1612
711e434b
PM
1613* New remote packets
1614
1615qGetTIBAddr
1616
1617 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1618
dde08ee1
PA
1619qRelocInsn
1620
1621 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1622 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1623 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1624 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1625 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1626 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1627
0fb4aa4b
PA
1628qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1629
1630 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1631
1632qTSTMat
1633
1634 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1635 program.
1636
1637qXfer:statictrace:read
1638
1639 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1640 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1641 to gdb's qSupported query.
1642
ca11e899
SS
1643QAllow
1644
1645 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1646
1647QTDPsrc
1648
1649 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1650 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1651
3f7b2faa
DE
1652* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1653 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1654 a directory.
1655
d337e9f0
PA
1656* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1657
0fb4aa4b
PA
1658 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1659 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1660 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1661 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1662
1663 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1664 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1665 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1666 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1667 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1668 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1669 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1670
1671 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1672 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1673
c24d0242
PM
1674 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1675
c8d5aac9
L
1676* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1677 it understands register description.
1678
7c953934
TT
1679* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1680
8685c86f
L
1681* X86 general purpose registers
1682
1683 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1684 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1685 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1686 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1687 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1688
95a42b64 1689* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1690 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1691 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1692 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1693 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1694 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1695
8bd10a10
CM
1696* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1697 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1698 in the specified file.
1699
ab38a727
PA
1700* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1701 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1702 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1703 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1704 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1705 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1706 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1707 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1708 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1709 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1710
6149aea9
PA
1711* New commands
1712
f1421989
HZ
1713eval template, expressions...
1714 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1715 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1716
ab38a727
PA
1717set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1718show target-file-system-kind
1719 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1720 names.
1721
6149aea9
PA
1722save breakpoints <filename>
1723 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1724 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1725 definitions, use the `source' command.
1726
1727`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1728is now deprecated.
1729
0fb4aa4b
PA
1730info static-tracepoint-markers
1731 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1732
1733strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1734 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1735 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1736
ca11e899
SS
1737set observer on|off
1738show observer
1739 Enable and disable observer mode.
1740
1741set may-write-registers on|off
1742set may-write-memory on|off
1743set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1744set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1745set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1746set may-interrupt on|off
1747 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1748 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1749 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1750 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1751 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1752 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1753 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1754
1755set record memory-query on|off
1756show record memory-query
1757 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1758 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1759
53a71c06
CR
1760* Changed commands
1761
1762disassemble
1763 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1764
f3e9a817
PM
1765* Python scripting
1766
9279c692
JB
1767** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1768 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1769 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1770 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1771 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1772
adc36818 1773** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1774 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1775 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1776 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1777
fa33c3cd 1778** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1779 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1780
1781** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1782
1783** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1784
967cf477
DE
1785** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1786
8a1ea21f
DE
1787** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1788 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1789 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1790
a7bdde9e
VP
1791* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1792there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1793tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1794regular breakpoints.
1795
05071a4d
PA
1796* New targets
1797
1798ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1799
6aecb9c2
JB
1800* D language support.
1801 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1802 language.
1803
431e49aa
TJB
1804* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1805 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1806 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1807 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1808 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1809
1810* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1811 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1812 conditions of the form:
1813
1814 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1815
1816 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1817 interface mentioned above.
1818
bfbf3774 1819*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1820
4eef138c
TT
1821* C++ Improvements
1822
1823 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1824
1825 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1826 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1827 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1828 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1829 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1830
4eef138c
TT
1831 ** Bug Fixes
1832
1833 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1834 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1835 qualified name.
1836
1837 ** Cast Operators
1838
1839 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1840 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1841
2d1c1221
ME
1842* New targets
1843
1844Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1845Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1846
1847* New Simulators
1848
1849Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1850Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1851
6c95b8df
PA
1852* Multi-program debugging.
1853
1854 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1855 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1856 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1857 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1858 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1859 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1860 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1861 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1862
d5551862
SS
1863* New tracing features
1864
1865 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1866
1867 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1868
1869 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1870 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1871 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1872 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1873 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1874 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1875 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1876 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1877 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1878 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1879
d5551862 1880 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1881
1882 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1883 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1884 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1885 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1886 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1887 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1888 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1889 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1890 the regular trace command.
1891
d5551862
SS
1892 ** Disconnected tracing
1893
1894 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1895 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1896 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1897 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1898 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1899
00bf0b85
SS
1900 ** Trace files
1901
1902 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1903 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1904 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1905 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1906 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1907 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1908 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1909
1910 ** Circular trace buffer
1911
1912 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1913 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1914 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1915 not be available for all target agents.
1916
21a0512e
PP
1917* Changed commands
1918
1919disassemble
1920 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1921 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1922
0fe7935b
DJ
1923info variables
1924 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1925 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1926
fb2e7cb4
JB
1927source
1928 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1929 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1930 support.
1931
1932 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1933 "set script-extension" (see below).
1934
6c95b8df
PA
1935* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1936
399cd161
MS
1937record save [<FILENAME>]
1938 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1939 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1940
1941record restore <FILENAME>
1942 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1943 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1944
6c95b8df
PA
1945add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1946 Add a new inferior.
1947
1948clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1949 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1950 inferior has loaded.
1951
1952remove-inferior ID
1953 Remove an inferior.
1954
1955maint info program-spaces
1956 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1957
9a7071a8
JB
1958set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1959show remote interrupt-sequence
1960 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1961 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1962 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1963 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1964 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1965
1966set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1967show remote interrupt-on-connect
1968 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1969 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1970 Linux kernel.
1971
1972set remotebreak [on | off]
1973show remotebreak
1974Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1975
f61e138d
SS
1976tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1977 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1978
1979info tvariables
1980 List trace state variables and their values.
1981
1982delete tvariable $NAME ...
1983 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1984
6da95a67
SS
1985teval EXPR, ...
1986 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1987 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1988
7a697b8d
SS
1989ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1990 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1991
b0f02ee9
JK
1992* New expression syntax
1993
1994 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1995 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1996
6c95b8df
PA
1997* New options
1998
1999set follow-exec-mode new|same
2000show follow-exec-mode
2001 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2002 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2003 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2004
236f1d4d
SS
2005set default-collect EXPR, ...
2006show default-collect
2007 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2008 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2009 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2010
d5551862
SS
2011set disconnected-tracing
2012show disconnected-tracing
2013 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2014 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2015 upon disconnection.
2016
4daf5ac0
SS
2017set circular-trace-buffer
2018show circular-trace-buffer
2019 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2020 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2021 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2022 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2023
fb2e7cb4
JB
2024set script-extension off|soft|strict
2025show script-extension
2026 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2027 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2028 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2029 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2030 evaluation failed.
2031 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2032
2b71fc8e
JB
2033set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2034show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2035 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2036 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2037 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2038 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2039 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2040 is on.
2041
de2e5182
TT
2042* Python API Improvements
2043
2044 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2045 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2046 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2047
2048 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2049 `is_base_class' attribute.
2050
2051 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2052
2053 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2054 evaluate an expression.
2055
f61e138d
SS
2056* New remote packets
2057
2058QTDV
2059 Define a trace state variable.
2060
2061qTV
2062 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2063
d5551862
SS
2064QTDisconnected
2065 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2066
4daf5ac0
SS
2067QTBuffer:circular
2068 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2069
d5551862
SS
2070qTfP, qTsP
2071 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2072
2d483d34
MS
2073* Bug fixes
2074
2075Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2076
6e0e5977
JB
2077Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2078much more reliable. In particular:
2079 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2080 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2081 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2082 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2083 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2084 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2085 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2086 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2087 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2088 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2089 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2090 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2091 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2092 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2093 non-threaded programs.
2094
93c26624
JK
2095PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2096This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2097libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2098executable program.
2099
abc7453d 2100*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 2101
4efc6507
DE
2102* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2103dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2104them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2105for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2106"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2107
782b2b07
SS
2108* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2109breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2110or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2111the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2112for tracepoint actions.
2113
53a71c06
CR
2114* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2115raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2116modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 2117
e7a8dbfb
HZ
2118* Process record and replay
2119
2120 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2121 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2122 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2123 execute commands.
2124
64644d9b
MS
2125* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2126step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2127set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2128reverse execution.
2129
b9412953
DD
2130* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2131feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
21322.6.28 or later.
2133
6c7a06a3
TT
2134* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2135target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2136char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2137literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2138U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2139`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2140system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2141the installation instructions for more information.
2142
f1838a98
UW
2143* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2144remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2145with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2146the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2147
55333a84
DE
2148* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2149and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2150
7f6a6314
PM
2151* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2152now complete on file names.
2153
65d12d83
TT
2154* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2155completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2156For instance, consider:
2157
2158 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2159 # struct example variable;
2160 (gdb) p variable.
2161
2162If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2163completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2164
edb3359d
DJ
2165* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2166the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2167
2fae03e8
TT
2168* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2169operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2170macros.
2171
47a3467a 2172* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
2173the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2174implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2175
2176* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2177registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2178can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2179and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 2180
08388c79
DE
2181* New remote packets
2182
2183qSearch:memory:
2184 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2185
a6f3e723
SL
2186QStartNoAckMode
2187 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2188 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2189 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2190
d7713ae0
EZ
2191vKill
2192 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2193 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2194
07e059b5
VP
2195qXfer:osdata:read
2196 Obtains additional operating system information
2197
47a3467a
PA
2198qXfer:siginfo:read
2199qXfer:siginfo:write
2200 Read or write additional signal information.
2201
060871df
PA
2202* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2203
2204 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2205 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2206 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2207
c055b101 2208* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 2209DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
2210
2211* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
2212and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2213`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 2214
31fffb02
CS
2215* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2216with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2217
88d8a8e0
JB
2218* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2219
7f99b190
JB
2220* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2221
ccd213ac
DJ
2222* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2223which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2224
1fddbabb 2225* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 2226list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 2227
a0ef4274
DJ
2228* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2229conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2230have also been fixed.
2231
bfb8797a 2232* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
2233From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2234are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 2235
71c25dea
TT
2236* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2237example, given:
2238
2239 template<typename T> class C { };
2240 C<char const *> c;
2241
2242GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2243
2244 ptype C<char const *>
2245 ptype C<char const*>
2246 ptype C<const char *>
2247 ptype C<const char*>
2248
ccd213ac
DJ
2249* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2250
2251 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2252 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2253
7ae0e2a2
UW
2254 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2255 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2256 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2257
a6f3e723
SL
2258 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2259 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2260
da8bd9a3
DJ
2261 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2262 gdbserver.
2263
d70e31dd
DE
2264 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2265 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2266
2267 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2268 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2269 as appropriate.
2270
d57a3c85
TJB
2271* Python scripting
2272
2273 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2274 available is determined at configure time.
2275
d8906c6f
TJB
2276 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2277
aadc346a
JB
2278* Ada tasking support
2279
2280 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2281 been introduced:
2282
2283 info tasks
2284 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2285 info task N
2286 Print detailed information about task number N.
2287 task
2288 Print the task number of the current task.
2289 task N
2290 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2291
adb483fe
DJ
2292* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2293add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2294
2277426b
PA
2295* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2296
2297 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2298 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2299 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2300 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2301 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2302 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2303 below.
2304
08d16641
PA
2305* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2306"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2307information.
2308
e35359c5
UW
2309* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2310to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2311architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2312See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2313more information.
2314
85e747d2
UW
2315* Multi-architecture debugging.
2316
2317 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2318 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2319 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2320 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2321 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2322
2323* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2324use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2325Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2326powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2327--enable-targets configure option.
2328
11ade57a
PA
2329* Non-stop mode debugging.
2330
2331 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2332 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2333 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2334 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2335 section in the user manual for more information.
2336
2337 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2338 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2339 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2340 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2341 extensions on linux targets.
2342
d7713ae0 2343* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2344
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2345catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2346 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2347 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2348 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2349 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2350 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2351 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2352 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2353 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2354
08388c79
DE
2355find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2356 val1 [, val2, ...]
2357 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2358
d57a3c85
TJB
2359maint set python print-stack
2360maint show python print-stack
2361 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2362
2363python [CODE]
2364 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2365
d7713ae0
EZ
2366macro define
2367macro list
2368macro undef
2369 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2370 interactively.
2371
2372info os processes
2373 Show operating system information about processes.
2374
2277426b
PA
2375info inferiors
2376 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2377
2378inferior NUM
2379 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2380
2381detach inferior NUM
2382 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2383
2384kill inferior NUM
2385 Kill inferior number NUM.
2386
d7713ae0
EZ
2387* New options
2388
3285f3fe
UW
2389set spu stop-on-load
2390show spu stop-on-load
2391 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2392
ff1a52c6
UW
2393set spu auto-flush-cache
2394show spu auto-flush-cache
2395 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2396 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2397
d7713ae0
EZ
2398set sh calling-convention
2399show sh calling-convention
2400 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2401
e0a3ce09 2402set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2403show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2404 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2405
2406set disassemble-next-line
2407show disassemble-next-line
2408 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2409 the debuggee stops.
2410
2411set remote noack-packet
2412show remote noack-packet
2413 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2414 under "New remote packets."
2415
2416set remote query-attached-packet
2417show remote query-attached-packet
2418 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2419
2420set remote read-siginfo-object
2421show remote read-siginfo-object
2422 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2423 packet.
2424
2425set remote write-siginfo-object
2426show remote write-siginfo-object
2427 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2428 packet.
2429
40ab02ce
MS
2430set remote reverse-continue
2431show remote reverse-continue
2432 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2433
2434set remote reverse-step
2435show remote reverse-step
2436 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2437
d7713ae0
EZ
2438set displaced-stepping
2439show displaced-stepping
2440 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2441 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2442 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2443
2444set debug displaced
2445show debug displaced
2446 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2447
2448maint set internal-error
2449maint show internal-error
2450 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2451
2452maint set internal-warning
2453maint show internal-warning
2454 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2455
ccd213ac
DJ
2456set exec-wrapper
2457show exec-wrapper
2458unset exec-wrapper
2459 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2460
aad4b048
JB
2461set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2462show multiple-symbols
2463 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2464 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2465 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2466
74960c60
VP
2467set breakpoint always-inserted
2468show breakpoint always-inserted
2469 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2470 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2471 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2472
0428b8f5
DJ
2473set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2474show arm fallback-mode
2475set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2476show arm force-mode
2477 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2478 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2479 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2480 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2481
10568435
JK
2482set disable-randomization
2483show disable-randomization
2484 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2485 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2486 multiple debugging sessions.
2487
d7713ae0
EZ
2488set non-stop
2489show non-stop
2490 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2491 a breakpoint.
2492
b3eb342c 2493set target-async
d7713ae0 2494show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2495 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2496 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2497 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2498 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2499
6c7a06a3
TT
2500set target-wide-charset
2501show target-wide-charset
2502 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2503 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2504
84603566
SL
2505set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2506show tcp auto-retry
2507set tcp connect-timeout
2508show tcp connect-timeout
2509 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2510 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2511 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2512
17a37d48
PP
2513set libthread-db-search-path
2514show libthread-db-search-path
2515 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2516 libthread_db.
2517
d4db2f36
PA
2518set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2519show schedule-multiple
2520 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2521 the current process.
2522
4e5d721f
DE
2523set stack-cache
2524show stack-cache
2525 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2526 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2527 affecting correctness.
2528
910c5da8
JB
2529set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2530show interactive-mode
2531 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2532 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2533 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2534 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2535 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2536
2277426b
PA
2537* Removed commands
2538
2539info forks
2540 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2541 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2542 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2543 command.
2544
2545fork NUM
2546 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2547 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2548 alias for the `fork' command.
2549
2550process PID
2551 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2552 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2553 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2554
2555delete fork NUM
2556 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2557 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2558 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2559 fork' command.
2560
2561detach fork NUM
2562 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2563 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2564 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2565 fork' command.
2566
a80b95ba
TG
2567* New native configurations
2568
2569x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2570
b8bfd3ed
JB
2571x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2572
75a2d5e7
TT
2573* New targets
2574
c28c63d8 2575Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2576x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2577x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2578S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2579
6de3146c
PA
2580* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2581 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2582
d5cbbe6e
JB
2583* Removed commands
2584
2585catch load
2586catch unload
2587 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2588
75feb17d 2589*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2590
af5ca30d
NH
2591* New native configurations
2592
2593NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2594Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2595
2596* New targets
2597
2598NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2599Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2600
7a404eba
PA
2601* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2602
2603 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2604 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2605 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2606 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2607
430ebac9
PA
2608* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2609(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2610
fe6fbf8b 2611* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2612is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2613
2614* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2615including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2616and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2617
10665d76
JB
2618* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2619accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2620more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2621
7cc46491
DJ
2622* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2623
d71340b8
DJ
2624* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2625registers on PowerPC targets.
2626
523c4513
DJ
2627* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2628targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2629
a6b151f1
DJ
2630* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2631commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2632
2d717e4f
DJ
2633* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2634extended-remote mode.
2635
24a836bd 2636* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2637The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2638error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2639The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2640
d0c678e6
UW
2641* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2642building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2643target architectures.
2644
d64a946d
TJB
2645* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2646Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2647now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2648stored in two consecutive float registers.
2649
ee163bf5
VP
2650* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2651breakpoints now.
2652
b93b6ca7 2653* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2654Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2655include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2656 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2657 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2658 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2659 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2660 of an assignment
2661 - Improved command completion in Ada
2662 - Several bug fixes
2663
d001be7a
DJ
2664* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2665process.
2666
a6b151f1
DJ
2667* New commands
2668
6d53d0af
JB
2669set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2670show print frame-arguments
2671 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2672 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2673
a6b151f1
DJ
2674remote put
2675remote get
2676remote delete
2677 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2678
2679* New MI commands
2680
2681-target-file-put
2682-target-file-get
2683-target-file-delete
2684 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2685
2686* New remote packets
2687
2688vFile:open:
2689vFile:close:
2690vFile:pread:
2691vFile:pwrite:
2692vFile:unlink:
2693 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2694
2d717e4f
DJ
2695vAttach
2696 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2697 mode.
2698
2699vRun
2700 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2701
8d5f9c6f 2702*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2703
19d378fc
MS
2704* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2705bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2706Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2707
3a40aaa0
UW
2708* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2709symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2710-Bsymbolic linker option.
2711
a6ec25f2
BW
2712* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2713recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2714is not supported.
2715
6dd09645
JB
2716* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2717frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2718
c9bb8148
DJ
2719* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
272032-bit or 64-bit register values.
2721
0d5de010
DJ
2722* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2723
23181151
DJ
2724* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2725target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2726a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2727
ea37ba09
DJ
2728* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2729automatically displayed as character or string data.
2730
2731* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2732arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2733as strings.
e1f48ead 2734
123dc839
DJ
2735* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2736for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2737only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2738
05a4558a
DJ
2739* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2740iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2741
7c963485
PA
2742* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2743ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2744has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2745
b18be20d
DJ
2746* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2747
0ca420ce
UW
2748* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2749
31d99776
DJ
2750* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2751layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2752segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2753
a4642986
MR
2754* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2755immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2756
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2757* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2758"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2759packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2760where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2761Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2762
2763* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2764(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2765
2766* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2767according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2768
c9bb8148
DJ
2769* New commands
2770
23776285
MR
2771set remoteflow
2772show remoteflow
2773 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2774 when debugging using remote targets.
2775
c9bb8148
DJ
2776set mem inaccessible-by-default
2777show mem inaccessible-by-default
2778 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2779 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2780 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2781 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2782 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2783
2784set breakpoint auto-hw
2785show breakpoint auto-hw
2786 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2787 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2788 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2789 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2790 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2791 including "next" and "finish".
2792
0e420bd8
JB
2793catch exception
2794catch exception unhandled
2795 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2796
2797catch assert
2798 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2799
f822c95b
DJ
2800set sysroot
2801show sysroot
2802 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2803 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2804 an alias to "set sysroot".
2805
83cc5c53
UW
2806info spu
2807 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2808 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2809 architecture.
2810
bd372731
MK
2811* New native configurations
2812
2813OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2814
23181151
DJ
2815set tdesc filename
2816unset tdesc filename
2817show tdesc filename
2818 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2819 not query the target for its built-in description.
2820
c9bb8148
DJ
2821* New targets
2822
54fe9172 2823OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2824MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2825Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2826
6dd09645
JB
2827* New remote packets
2828
2829QPassSignals:
2830 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2831 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2832
23181151
DJ
2833qXfer:features:read:
2834 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2835 features.
6dd09645 2836
83cc5c53
UW
2837qXfer:spu:read:
2838qXfer:spu:write:
2839 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2840 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2841
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2842qXfer:libraries:read:
2843 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2844 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2845 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2846 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2847
483367ee
DJ
2848* Removed targets
2849
2850Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2851
d08950c4
UW
2852alpha*-*-osf1*
2853alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2854d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2855hppa*-*-hiux*
2856i[34567]86-ncr-*
2857i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2858i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2859i[34567]86-*-netware*
2860i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2861i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2862i[34567]86-*-sco*
2863i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2864i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2865i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2866i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2867i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2868i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2869i[34567]86-*-isc*
2870m68*-cisco*-*
2871m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2872mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2873rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2874sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2875
7ce59000
DJ
2876* Other removed features
2877
2878target abug
2879target cpu32bug
2880target est
2881target rom68k
2882
2883 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2884
ea35711c
DJ
2885target hms
2886target e7000
2887target sh3
2888target sh3e
2889
2890 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2891 H8/300.
2892
2893target ocd
2894
2895 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2896 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2897 interfaces.
2898
7ce59000
DJ
2899DWARF 1 support
2900
2901 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2902 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2903
54d61198
DJ
2904Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2905
2906 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2907 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2908 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2909 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2910
ea35711c
DJ
2911MIPS ".pdr" sections
2912
2913 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2914 in debugging information.
2915
2916Scheme support
2917
2918 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2919 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2920
1a69e1e4
DJ
2921set mips stack-arg-size
2922set mips saved-gpreg-size
2923
2924 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2925
6dd09645 2926*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2927
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2928* New targets
2929
2930Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2931Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2932
6aec2e11
DJ
2933* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2934(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2935running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2936
2937* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2938Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2939supported.
2940
17218d91
DJ
2941* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2942broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2943
9ebce043
DJ
2944* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2945stub provides the required support.
2946
7d3d3ece
DJ
2947* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2948longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2949
4f8253f3
JB
2950* New commands
2951
2952set substitute-path
2953unset substitute-path
2954show substitute-path
2955 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2956 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2957 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2958 between compilation and debugging.
2959
9fa66fd7
AS
2960set trace-commands
2961show trace-commands
2962 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2963 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2964 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2965
1f5befc1
DJ
2966* REMOVED features
2967
2968The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2969
2ec3381a
DJ
2970Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2971an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2972
3d00d119
DJ
2973The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2974
be2a5f71
DJ
2975* New remote packets
2976
2977qSupported:
2978 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2979 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2980 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2981 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2982 target.
2983
0876f84a
DJ
2984qXfer:auxv:read:
2985 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2986 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2987
9ebce043
DJ
2988qXfer:memory-map:read:
2989 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2990 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2991
2992vFlashErase:
2993vFlashWrite:
2994vFlashDone:
2995 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2996
0876f84a
DJ
2997* Removed remote packets
2998
2999qPart:auxv:read:
3000 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3001 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3002
e374b601 3003*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 3004
96309189
MS
3005* New targets
3006
3007Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3008
3009Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3010
53e5f3cf
AS
3011* New commands
3012
3013init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3014 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3015
ac264b3b
MS
3016The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3017
3018checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3019
3020restart <n> Return the program state to a
3021 previously saved state.
3022
3023info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3024
3025delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3026
3027set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3028 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3029
3030info forks List forks of the user program that
3031 are available to be debugged.
3032
3033fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3034 forks of the user program that are
3035 available to be debugged.
3036
3037delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3038 that are available to be debugged (and
3039 kill the forked process).
3040
3041detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3042 that are available to be debugged (and
3043 allow the process to continue).
3044
3950dc3f
NS
3045* New architecture
3046
3047Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3048
0ea3f30e
DJ
3049* Improved Windows host support
3050
3051GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3052native console support, and remote communications using either
3053network sockets or serial ports.
3054
f79daebb
GM
3055* Improved Modula-2 language support
3056
3057GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3058basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3059pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3060printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3061written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3062GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3063
acab6ab2
MM
3064* REMOVED features
3065
3066The ARM rdi-share module.
3067
f4267320
DJ
3068The Netware NLM debug server.
3069
53e5f3cf 3070*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 3071
e0ecbda1
MK
3072* New native configurations
3073
02a677ac 3074OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
3075OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3076
d64a6579
KB
3077* New targets
3078
3079Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3080
b33a6190
AS
3081* New command line options
3082
3083--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3084--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3085 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3086--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3087 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3088 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3089 with the --command (-x) option.
3090
11dced61
AC
3091* Deprecated commands removed
3092
3093The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3094removed:
3095
3096 Command Replacement
3097 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3098 othernames set arm disassembler
3099 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3100 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3101 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3102 regs info registers
3103
6fe85783
MK
3104* New BSD user-level threads support
3105
3106It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3107library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3108configurations are:
3109
3110FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3111FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3112OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3113
3114Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3115are not yet supported.
3116
5260ca71
MS
3117* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3118(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3119
e84ecc99
AC
3120* REMOVED configurations and files
3121
3122VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 3123Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 3124National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 3125
31e35378
JB
3126* New "set print array-indexes" command
3127
3128After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3129when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3130behavior.
3131
e85e5c83
MK
3132* VAX floating point support
3133
3134GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3135
d91e9901
AS
3136* User-defined command support
3137
3138In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3139to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3140section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3141
f2cb65ca
MC
3142*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3143
f47b1503
AS
3144* New command line option
3145
3146GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3147debugging.
3148
f2cb65ca
MC
3149* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3150
3151GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3152information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3153by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3154proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3155to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 3156
d08c0230
AC
3157* Internationalization
3158
3159When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3160internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3161continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3162
117ea3cf
PH
3163* Ada
3164
3165Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3166implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3167into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3168
d08c0230
AC
3169* New native configurations
3170
3171GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3172
3173* Remote 'p' packet
3174
3175GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3176packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3177
3178* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3179
3180GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3181The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3182features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3183i386 application).
3184
3185GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3186compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3187continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3188configurations:
3189
3190hppa-*-hpux
3191ia64-*-aix
3192mips-*-irix*
3193*-*-lynx
3194mips-*-linux-gnu
3195sds protocol
3196xdr protocol
3197powerpc bdm protocol
3198
3199Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3200made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3201
3202* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3203
3204Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3205been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3206configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3207permanently REMOVED.
3208
3209h8300-*-*
3210mcore-*-*
3211mn10300-*-*
3212ns32k-*-*
3213sh64-*-*
3214v850-*-*
3215
ebb7c577
AC
3216*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3217
3218* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3219
3220When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3221heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3222been fixed.
3223
3224* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3225
3226When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3227fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3228IRIX long double values).
3229
3230* VAX and "next"
3231
3232A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3233command. This problem has been fixed.
3234
860660cb 3235*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 3236
0dea2468
AC
3237* Fix for ``many threads''
3238
3239On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3240rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3241error message:
3242
3243 ptrace: No such process.
3244 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3245
3246This problem has been fixed.
3247
2c07db7a
AC
3248* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3249
3250Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3251GDB to dump core).
3252
c23968a2
JB
3253* New ``start'' command.
3254
3255This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3256
71009278
MK
3257* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3258
3259Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3260live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3261platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3262
3263FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3264FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3265NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3266NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3267NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3268OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3269OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3270OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3271OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3272
3c0b7db2
AC
3273* Signal trampoline code overhauled
3274
3275Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3276These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3277of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3278call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3279signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3280
73cc75f3
AC
3281Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3282features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3283include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 3284
7243600a
BF
3285* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3286
6f606e1c
MK
3287* New native configurations
3288
97dc871c 3289GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 3290OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
3291OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3292OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 3293OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3294NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 3295OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3296
a1b461bf
AC
3297* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3298
3299GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3300The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3301including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3302migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3303compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3304work, was also included.
3305
3306GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3307module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3308
3309h8300-*-*
3310mcore-*-*
3311mn10300-*-*
3312ns32k-*-*
3313sh64-*-*
3314v850-*-*
3315xstormy16-*-*
3316
3317Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3318made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3319
3c7012f5
AC
3320* REMOVED configurations and files
3321
3322Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3323Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3324Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3325Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3326Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3327AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3328Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3329decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3330riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3331sonymips mips-sony-*
3332sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3333
e5fe55f7
AC
3334*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3335
3336* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3337
3338The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3339GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3340command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3341program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3342with GDB".
3343
3344* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3345
3346Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3347libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3348cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3349GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3350shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3351the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3352are created.
3353
3354Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3355
3356* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3357
3358The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3359non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3360compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3361
3362* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3363
3364Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3365wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3366
3367* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3368
3369The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3370permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3371systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3372
3373* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3374
3375Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3376has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3377
3378* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3379
3380GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3381its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3382panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3383
3384* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3385
3386When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3387by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3388not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3389
faae5abe 3390*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3391
9175c9a3
MC
3392* Removed --with-mmalloc
3393
3394Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3395conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3396
3cc87ec0
MK
3397* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3398
3399The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3400the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3401and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3402you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3403
f0424ef6
MK
3404* Revised SPARC target
3405
3406The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3407FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3408support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3409from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3410(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3411
59659be2
ILT
3412* New C++ demangler
3413
3414GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3415names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3416with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3417programs.
3418
9e08b29b
DJ
3419* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3420
3421GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3422arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3423encountered these.
3424
8dfe8985
DC
3425* C++ nested types and namespaces
3426
3427GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3428improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3429is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3430Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3431namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3432"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3433frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3434if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3435GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3436
cced5e27
MK
3437* New native configurations
3438
3439NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3440OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3441OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3442OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3443OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3444
b4b4b794
KI
3445* New debugging protocols
3446
3447M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3448
7989c619
AC
3449* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3450
3451The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3452and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3453tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3454
5994185b
AC
3455* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3456
3457Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3458been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3459configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3460permanently REMOVED.
3461
3462Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3463Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3464Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3465Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3466Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3467AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3468Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3469decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3470riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3471sonymips mips-sony-*
3472sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3473
0ddabb4c
AC
3474* REMOVED configurations and files
3475
3476SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3477SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3478Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3479Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3480H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3481HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3482HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3483HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3484PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3485386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3486Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3487 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3488 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3489SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3490SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3491Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3492Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3493
c7f1390e
DJ
3494*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3495
1fe43d45
AC
3496* Objective-C
3497
3498Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3499integrated into GDB.
3500
e6beb428
AC
3501* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3502
3503DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3504information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3505By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3506backtraces.
3507
3508The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3509have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3510DWARF 2 CFI support.
3511
3512* Hosted file I/O.
3513
3514GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3515file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3516remote protocol documentation for details.
3517
3518* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3519
3520All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3521architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3522to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3523ppc32 on ppc64).
3524
3525* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3526
3527GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3528per-thread variables.
3529
3530* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3531
3532GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3533GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3534
3535* Separate debug info.
3536
3537GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3538automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3539of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3540system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3541and optional debug files.
3542
3543* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3544
3545DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3546describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3547debugger.
3548
3549GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3550for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3551
3552* Java
3553
3554A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3555Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3556considered "useable".
3557
85f8f974
DJ
3558* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3559
3560The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3561commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3562kernel.
3563
0fac0b41
DJ
3564* GDB supports logging output to a file
3565
3566There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3567used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3568
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3569* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3570
3571The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3572disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3573command.
3574
e286caf2 3575* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3576
3577The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3578registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3579
d28f9cdf
DJ
3580* Profiling support
3581
3582A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3583be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3584session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3585"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3586data, for more informative profiling results.
3587
da0f9dcd
AC
3588* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3589
3590The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3591option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3592"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3593
3594Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3595removed.
3596
fb9b6b35
JJ
3597Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3598Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3599Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3600 in a subsequent -var-update.
3601
954a4db8
MK
3602* New native configurations.
3603
3604FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3605
6760f9e6
JB
3606* Multi-arched targets.
3607
b4263afa 3608HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3609Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3610
1b831c93
AC
3611* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3612
3613Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3614been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3615configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3616permanently REMOVED.
3617
8b0e5691 3618Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3619Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3620H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3621HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3622HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3623HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3624PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3625Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3626 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3627 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3628Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3629Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3630
5835abe7
NC
3631* REMOVED configurations and files
3632
3633V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3634Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3635IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3636i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3637i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3638i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3639HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3640 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3641 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3642Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3643Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3644Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3645OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3646I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3647
a094c6fb
AC
3648* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3649
3650The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3651the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3652context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3653address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3654The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3655
299ffc64 3656*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3657
46248966
AC
3658* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3659
3660When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3661`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3662in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3663library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3664shared libs like mad''.
3665
b9d14705 3666* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3667
b9d14705
DJ
3668Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3669the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3670arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3671powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3672
e0e9281e
JB
3673* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3674
3675GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3676and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3677they expand.
3678
dd73b9bb
AC
3679The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3680invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3681
3682The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3683macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3684
e0e9281e
JB
3685Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3686information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3687your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3688information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3689
2250ee0c
CV
3690* Multi-arched targets.
3691
6e3ba3b8
JT
3692DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3693DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3694NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3695National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3696Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3697Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3698
cd9bfe15 3699* New targets.
e33ce519 3700
456f8b9d
DB
3701Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3702
e33ce519 3703
da8ca43d
JT
3704* New native configurations
3705
3706Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3707SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3708MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3709UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3710
cd9bfe15
AC
3711* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3712
3713Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3714been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3715configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3716permanently REMOVED.
3717
92eb23c5 3718Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3719OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3720IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3721Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3722Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3723Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3724i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3725i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3726i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3727HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3728 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3729 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3730I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3731
db034ac5
AC
3732* OBSOLETE languages
3733
3734CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3735
cd9bfe15
AC
3736* REMOVED configurations and files
3737
3738AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3739A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3740AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3741AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3742AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3743
3744testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3745
20f01a46
DH
3746* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3747
3748This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3749commands. The default is 1024.
3750
a5941fbf
MK
3751* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3752
3753Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3754
89743e04
MS
3755* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3756
3757These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3758to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3759from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3760
9fb14e79
JB
3761* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3762
3763The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3764including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3765of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3766
2037aebb
AC
3767*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3768
3769* New targets.
3770
3771Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3772
3773* Bug fixes
3774
3775gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3776mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3777Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3778
3779gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3780dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3781Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3782
3783Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3784Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3785By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3786
3787i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3788avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3789By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3790
37057839 3791*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3792
1a703748
MS
3793* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3794
3795This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3796really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3797In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3798target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3799This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3800(notably embedded) targets.
3801
cefd4ef5
MS
3802* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3803
55241689
AC
3804This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3805process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3806GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3807hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3808
352ed7b4
MS
3809* New command line option
3810
3811GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3812
3813* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3814
3815There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3816command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3817a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3818be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3819open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3820issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3821a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3822it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3823GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3824is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3825
fe419ffc
RE
3826* Changes in ARM configurations.
3827
3828Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3829configuration is fully multi-arch.
3830
eb7cedd9
MK
3831* New native configurations
3832
fe419ffc 3833ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3834x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3835AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3836Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3837
c9f63e6b
CV
3838* New targets
3839
3840Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3841
9b4ff276
AC
3842* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3843
3844Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3845been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3846configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3847permanently REMOVED.
3848
3849AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3850A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3851AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3852AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3853AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3854
b4ceaee6 3855testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3856
e2caac18
AC
3857* REMOVED configurations and files
3858
3859TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3860WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3861PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3862PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3863PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3864Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3865Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3866 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3867SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3868Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3869Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3870ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3871Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3872
c2a727fa
TT
3873* Changes to command line processing
3874
3875The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3876for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3877
467d8519
TT
3878* Changes to key bindings
3879
3880There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3881
7072a954
AC
3882*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3883
3884Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3885
3886Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3887corrupted.
3888
3889Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3890
3891Numerous documentation fixes.
3892
3893Numerous testsuite fixes.
3894
34f47bc4 3895*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3896
3897* New native configurations
3898
3899Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3900x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3901MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3902MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3903ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3904s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3905
bf64bfd6
AC
3906* New targets
3907
def90278 3908Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3909CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3910UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3911
17e78a56 3912* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3913
3914x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3915Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3916Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3917 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3918TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3919WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3920Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3921PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3922PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3923PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3924SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3925Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3926ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3927Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3928
17e78a56
AC
3929stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3930kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3931
7fcca85b
AC
3932Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3933been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3934configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3935permanently REMOVED.
3936
a196c81c 3937* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3938
3939Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3940Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3941Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3942ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3943Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3944ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3945
6d6b80e5 3946* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3947
6d6b80e5 3948GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3949sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3950present.
3951
bf64bfd6
AC
3952* Other news:
3953
e23194cb
EZ
3954* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3955
3956* The MI enabled by default.
3957
3958The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3959revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3960engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3961using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3962which is now deprecated.
3963
3964* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3965
3966GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3967main features are supported:
3968
3969 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3970
3971 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3972 extension;
3973
3974 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3975
3976 - a Pascal expression parser.
3977
3978However, some important features are not yet supported.
3979
3980 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3981
3982 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3983
3984 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3985 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3986
3987 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3988
3989 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3990
3991* Changes in completion.
3992
3993Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3994to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3995users expect at the shell prompt.
3996
3997Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3998`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3999program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4000files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4001be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4002considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4003name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4004
4005`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4006
4007* New platform-independent commands:
4008
4009It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4010hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4011documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4012
4013* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4014
d7275149
MK
4015Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4016revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4017many threads as your system allows you to have.
4018
e23194cb
EZ
4019Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4020
d7275149
MK
4021Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4022multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
4023
4024* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
4025
4026Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4027
e23194cb
EZ
4028GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4029debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4030supported.)
4031
4032* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4033
4034Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4035breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4036implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4037put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4038and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4039registers.
4040
4041The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4042debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4043watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4044
4045* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4046
4047New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4048the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4049
4050New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4051display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4052IDT.
4053
4054New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4055from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4056New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4057a given linear address.
4058
4059GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4060program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4061which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4062
4063DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4064
6c56c069
EZ
4065It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4066
e23194cb
EZ
4067* Changes in documentation.
4068
4069All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4070Documentation License.
4071
4072Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4073manual.
4074
4075TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4076
4077Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4078manual.
4079
4080The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4081documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4082hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4083
5d6640b1
AC
4084* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4085
4086The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4087``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4088contents of this file.
4089
1a1d8446
AC
4090* gdba.el deleted
4091
4092GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 4093
9debab2f 4094*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 4095
c63ce875
EZ
4096* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4097
4098Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4099programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4100displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4101greater level of detail.
4102
4103* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4104
4105It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4106bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4107on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4108written.
4109
4110* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4111
4112The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4113necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4114machines ``out of the box''.
4115
4116The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4117possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4118signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4119would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4120interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4121
4122It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4123standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4124even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4125and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4126terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4127
4128The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4129enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4130also works.
4131
4132DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4133GDB.
4134
4135It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4136directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4137times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4138breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4139
ed9a39eb
JM
4140* New native configurations
4141
4142ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 4143PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 4144
7a292a7a
SS
4145* New targets
4146
96baa820 4147Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
4148x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4149PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
4150TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4151
085dd6e6
JM
4152* OBSOLETE configurations
4153
4154Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4155Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 4156Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 4157ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 4158Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 4159
9debab2f
AC
4160Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4161but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4162these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4163be permanently REMOVED.
4164
5330533d
SS
4165* Gould support removed
4166
4167Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4168
bc9e5bbf
AC
4169* New features for SVR4
4170
4171On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4172without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4173load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4174
4175* Many C++ enhancements
4176
4177C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4178in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4179
adf40b2e
JM
4180* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4181
4182A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4183sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4184with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4185``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4186
4187 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4188 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4189
43e526b9
JM
4190* MIPS 64 remote protocol
4191
4192A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4193expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4194instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4195
4196The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4197added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4198
96baa820
JM
4199* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4200
4201The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4202``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4203include ``set remote P-packet''.
4204
11cf8741
JM
4205* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4206
4207The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4208accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4209``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4210
7876dd43
DB
4211* ``apropos'' command added.
4212
4213The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4214documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4215try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4216
bc9e5bbf
AC
4217* New MI interface
4218
4219A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4220interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
4221process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4222"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4223enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
4224
4225 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4226
c906108c
SS
4227*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4228
4229* New native configurations
4230
4231HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4232HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 4233M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
4234
4235* New targets
4236
4237Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4238Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4239Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4240
4241* OBSOLETE configurations
4242
4243Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4244
4245Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4246but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4247these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4248be permanently REMOVED.
4249
4250* ANSI/ISO C
4251
4252As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4253buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4254containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4255use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4256available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4257configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4258information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4259already.
4260
4261* Readline 2.2
4262
4263GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4264
4265* set extension-language
4266
4267You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4268languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4269you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4270 set extension-language .c c++
4271The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4272and their associated languages.
4273
4274* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4275
4276When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4277you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4278PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4279
4280 set processor NAME
4281
4282sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4283following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4284
4285 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4286 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4287 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4288 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4289 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4290 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4291 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4292 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4293 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4294 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4295 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4296
4297At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4298special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4299registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4300only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4301
4302* HP-UX support
4303
4304Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4305more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4306library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4307support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4308for xdb and dbx commands.
4309
4310* Catchpoints
4311
4312HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4313generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4314to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4315
4316This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4317argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4318output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4319
4320* Debugging across forks
4321
4322On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4323in the inferior.
4324
4325* TUI
4326
4327HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4328it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4329configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4330
4331* GDB remote protocol additions
4332
4333A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4334Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4335fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4336allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4337
4338For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4339full 64-bit address. The command
4340
4341 set remoteaddresssize 32
4342
4343can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4344the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4345will be discarded.
4346
4347In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4348command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4349
4350 maint packet heythere
4351
4352sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4353disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4354time.
4355
4356The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4357target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4358downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4359
4360* Tracing can collect general expressions
4361
4362You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4363further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4364doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4365
4366* mask-address variable for Mips
4367
4368For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4369a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4370of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4371
4372* Higher serial baud rates
4373
4374GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4375230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4376to achieve all of these rates.)
4377
4378* i960 simulator
4379
4380The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4381builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4382
4383
4384*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4385
4386* New native configurations
4387
4388Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4389Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4390Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4391PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4392PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4393Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4394Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4395
4396* New targets
4397
4398Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4399Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4400Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4401Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4402MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4403MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4404MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4405Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4406Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4407Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4408NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4409
4410* New debugging protocols
4411
4412ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4413M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4414DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4415PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4416PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4417Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4418
4419* DWARF 2
4420
4421All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4422format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4423information.
4424
4425* Java frontend
4426
4427GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4428only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4429
4430* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4431
4432For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4433loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4434locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4435
4436* Live range splitting
4437
4438GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4439range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4440more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4441
4442* Hurd support
4443
4444GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4445updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4446
4447* ARM Thumb support
4448
4449GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4450instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4451instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4452accordingly.
4453
4454* MIPS16 support
4455
4456GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4457instruction set.
4458
4459* Overlay support
4460
4461GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4462linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4463will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4464control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4465additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4466in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4467
4468* info symbol
4469
4470The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4471the symbol at the specified address.
4472
4473* Trace support
4474
4475The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4476asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4477extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4478includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4479file tracepoint.c for more details.
4480
4481* MIPS simulator
4482
4483Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4484by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4485of most MIPS variants.
4486
4487* Sparc simulator
4488
4489Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4490by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4491Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4492
4493* set architecture
4494
4495For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4496basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4497architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4498the possible architectures.
4499
4500*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4501
4502* New native configurations
4503
4504Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4505M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4506PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4507PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4508PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4509RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4510
4511* New targets
4512
4513ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4514I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4515MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4516MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4517PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4518Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4519Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4520
4521* PowerPC simulator
4522
4523The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4524contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4525PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4526basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4527performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4528
4529* Solaris 2.5
4530
4531GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4532
4533* Windows 95/NT native
4534
4535GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4536To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4537which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4538Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4539ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4540
4541* dont-repeat command
4542
4543If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4544command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4545useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4546extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4547
4548* Send break instead of ^C
4549
4550The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4551rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4552GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4553
4554* Remote protocol timeout
4555
4556The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4557that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4558to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4559
4560* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4561
4562By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4563loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4564stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4565when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4566in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4567
4568Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4569/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4570automatically on hpux10.
4571
4572* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4573
4574Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4575
4576* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4577
4578When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4579may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4580the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4581every character. The default value is 1050.
4582
4583* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4584
4585If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4586a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4587replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4588details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4589remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4590to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4591
4592* Speedups for remote debugging
4593
4594GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4595the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4596and more efficient S-record downloading.
4597
4598* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4599
4600GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4601Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4602
4603*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4604
4605* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4606
4607The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4608can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4609
4610* Remote targets use caching
4611
4612Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4613remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4614it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4615debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4616off' turns the the data cache off.
4617
4618* Remote targets may have threads
4619
4620The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4621in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4622gdb/remote.c for details.
4623
4624* NetROM support
4625
4626If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4627support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4628acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4629write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4630support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4631another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4632sequence is something like
4633
4634 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4635 load <prog>
4636 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4637
4638* Macintosh host
4639
4640GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4641may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4642it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4643available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4644device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4645directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4646scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4647mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4648
4649* Autoconf
4650
4651GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4652but does simplify configuration and building.
4653
4654* hpux10
4655
4656GDB now supports hpux10.
4657
4658*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4659
4660* New native configurations
4661
4662x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4663x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4664NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4665Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4666
4667* New targets
4668
4669A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4670HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4671CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4672PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4673WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4674
4675* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4676
4677GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4678possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4679filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4680the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4681if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4682
4683* Arguments to user-defined commands
4684
4685User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4686Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4687trivial example:
4688define adder
4689 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4690
4691To execute the command use:
4692adder 1 2 3
4693
4694Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4695Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4696use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4697
4698* New `if' and `while' commands
4699
4700This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4701commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4702expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4703execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4704terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4705`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4706if the expression is zero.
4707
4708* Fortran source language mode
4709
4710GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4711Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4712variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4713with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4714Fortran compilers.
4715
4716* Better HPUX support
4717
4718Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4719running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4720processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4721for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4722that behavior do the following before running the program:
4723
4724 adb -w a.out
4725 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4726 control-d
4727
4728This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4729To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4730
4731 adb -w a.out
4732 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4733 control-d
4734
4735You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4736the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4737external linkage.
4738
4739GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4740HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4741
4742* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4743
4744You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4745commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4746current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4747"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4748associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4749configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4750
4751* New DOS host serial code
4752
4753This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4754no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4755a PC's serial port.
4756
4757*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4758
4759* New "complete" command
4760
4761This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4762were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4763
4764* Trailing space optional in prompt
4765
4766"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4767allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4768
4769* Breakpoint hit counts
4770
4771"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4772has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4773can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4774to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4775less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4776that breakpoint.
4777
4778* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4779
4780"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4781an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4782arrays actually contain only short strings.
4783
4784* Shared library breakpoints
4785
4786In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4787breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4788
4789* Hardware watchpoints
4790
4791There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4792targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4793
55241689 4794Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4795
4796* Annotations
4797
4798Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4799and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4800
4801* Improved Irix 5 support
4802
4803GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4804
4805* Improved HPPA support
4806
4807GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4808
4809* New native configurations
4810
4811Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4812HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4813Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4814RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4815
4816* New targets
4817
4818OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4819MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4820Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4821
4822* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4823
4824There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4825This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4826
4827* Fixes
4828
4829As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4830and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4831
4832*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4833
4834* Irix 5 is now supported
4835
4836* HPPA support
4837
4838GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4839to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4840GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4841of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4842can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4843
4844
4845*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4846
4847* User visible changes:
4848
4849* Remote Debugging
4850
4851The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4852target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4853debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4854integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4855debugging info for the mips target).
4856
4857* DEC Alpha native support
4858
4859GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4860debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4861work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4862Alpha-specific notes.
4863
4864* Preliminary thread implementation
4865
4866GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4867
4868* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4869
4870This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4871to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4872for details).
4873
4874* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4875
4876This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4877mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4878call methods, ...etc.
4879
4880*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4881
4882 * User visible changes:
4883
4884Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4885supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4886other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4887somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4888
4889Filename completion now works.
4890
4891When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4892arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4893addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4894
4895All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4896vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4897should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4898your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4899to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4900
4901 * DEC alpha support
4902
4903This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4904cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4905
4906
4907*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4908
4909 * Testsuite
4910
4911This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4912The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4913via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4914
4915 * C++ demangling
4916
4917'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4918emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4919Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4920disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4921use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4922
4923 * Simulators
4924
4925GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4926So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4927Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4928
4929 * New targets supported
4930
4931H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4932H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4933SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4934Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4935IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4936
4937Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4938version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4939GO32 memory extender.
4940
4941 * New remote protocols
4942
4943MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4944
4945 * New source languages supported
4946
4947This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4948used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4949into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4950
4951
4952*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4953
4954 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4955
4956GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4957version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4958University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4959compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4960format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4961(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4962
4963Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4964
4965 * Faster and better demangling
4966
4967We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4968demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4969character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4970only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4971This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4972increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4973symbol lookups.
4974
4975`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4976from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4977compiler does not actually implement.
4978
4979 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4980
4981In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4982inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4983recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4984very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4985The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4986circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4987fix.
4988
4989The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4990release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4991
4992 * Improved configure script
4993
4994The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4995you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4996host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4997done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4998
4999We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5000version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5001`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5002The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5003only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5004We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5005
5006 * Documentation improvements
5007
5008There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5009produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5010before submitting changes.
5011
5012The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5013M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5014`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5015you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5016a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5017
5018*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5019We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5020been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5021or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5022`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5023around this problem.
5024
5025 * New features
5026
5027GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5028the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5029`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5030the target program.
5031
5032The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5033how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5034
5035 * New native hosts supported
5036
5037HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5038386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5039
5040 * New targets supported
5041
5042AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5043
5044 * New file formats supported
5045
5046BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5047HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5048
5049 * Major bug fixes
5050
5051Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5052
5053We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5054printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5055
5056We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5057for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5058release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5059
5060You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5061will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5062
5063We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5064for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5065especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5066libraries.
5067
5068The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5069information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5070command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5071any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5072when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5073
5074 * Internal improvements
5075
5076GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5077debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5078
5079GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5080Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5081symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5082contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5083shared code that handles any of them.
5084
5085 * New command line options
5086
5087We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5088
5089 * Mmalloc licensing
5090
5091The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5092General Public License.
5093
5094*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5095
5096 * Host/native/target split
5097
5098GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5099hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5100target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5101local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5102ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5103
5104The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5105GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5106is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5107code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5108any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5109built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5110handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5111
5112GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5113It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5114plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5115
5116 * New hosts supported
5117
5118HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5119386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5120386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5121
5122 * New targets supported
5123
5124Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
512568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5126
5127 * New native hosts supported
5128
5129386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5130 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5131386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5132
5133 * New file formats supported
5134
5135BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5136supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5137format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5138
5139 * New commands
5140
5141`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5142`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5143These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5144
5145`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5146
5147You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5148scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5149prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5150executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5151
5152 * C++ improvements
5153
5154We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5155info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5156symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5157
5158Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5159
5160 * Major bug fixes
5161
5162The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5163fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5164by the compiler.
5165
5166We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5167support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5168
5169John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5170slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5171that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5172purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5173the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5174mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5175
5176Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5177about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5178completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5179we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5180
5181 * AMD 29k support
5182
5183A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5184specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5185calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5186usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5187in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5188
5189We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5190Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5191of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5192resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5193
5194 * Remote interfaces
5195
5196We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5197with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5198message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5199This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5200needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5201breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5202each instruction being stepped through.
5203
5204The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5205registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5206
5207There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5208find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5209Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5210processor with a serial port.
5211
5212 * Configuration
5213
5214Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5215`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5216supported, and what files each one uses.
5217
5218 * Library changes
5219
5220There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5221disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5222Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5223disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5224
5225The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5226Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5227can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5228grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5229
5230 * Documentation
5231
5232The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5233reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5234as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5235encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5236system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5237bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5238
5239And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5240
5241
5242*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5243
5244 * Better support for C++ function names
5245
5246GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5247names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5248(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5249single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5250Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5251
5252GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5253the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5254You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5255lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5256for the list of formats.
5257
5258 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5259
5260Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5261C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5262directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5263can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5264usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5265about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5266this problem.)
5267
5268 * New 'maintenance' command
5269
5270All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5271the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5272can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5273
5274 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5275 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5276 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5277 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5278 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5279 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5280
5281The following commands are new:
5282
5283 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5284 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5285 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5286
5287 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5288
5289We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5290(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5291be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5292read after argv processing.
5293
5294 * New hosts supported
5295
5296Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5297
55241689 5298GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
5299
5300We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5301is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5302for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5303masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5304fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5305It costs extra.
5306
5307 * New targets supported
5308
5309Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5310
5311 * More smarts about finding #include files
5312
5313GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5314all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5315greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5316especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5317the one that contains your sources.
5318
5319We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5320breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5321try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5322
5323 * Interesting infernals change
5324
5325GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5326section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5327target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5328stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5329
5330 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5331
5332There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5333 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5334 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5335
5336See the ChangeLog for details.
5337
5338*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5339
5340 * New machines supported (host and target)
5341
5342IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5343
5344SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5345
5346 * New malloc package
5347
5348GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5349Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5350capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5351This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5352pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5353more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5354
5355 * info proc
5356
5357The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5358'help info proc' for details.
5359
5360 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5361
5362The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5363Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5364possible.
5365
5366 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5367
5368Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5369support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5370conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5371environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5372that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5373in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5374
5375 * Cross byte order fixes
5376
5377Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5378targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5379
5380 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5381
5382If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5383system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5384`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5385program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5386called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5387Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5388and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5389the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5390option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5391starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5392
5393You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5394the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5395information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5396slower, but makes future operations faster.
5397
5398The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5399build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5400A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5401use is:
5402
5403 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5404
5405The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5406It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5407shared across multiple host platforms.
5408
5409 * longjmp() handling
5410
5411GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5412siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5413all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5414platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5415
5416 * Solaris 2.0
5417
5418Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5419this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5420reading symbols.
5421
5422 * Bug fixes
5423
5424As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5425People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5426crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5427
5428*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5429
5430 * New machines supported (host and target)
5431
5432SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5433 (except core files)
5434BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5435Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5436
5437 * New machines supported (target)
5438
5439AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5440
5441 * C++ support
5442
5443GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5444The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5445per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5446
5447GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5448`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5449extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5450good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5451will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5452released.
5453
5454 * New features for SVR4
5455
5456GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5457shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5458only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5459
5460The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5461on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5462it prints the address mappings of the process.
5463
5464If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5465bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5466
5467 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5468
5469Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5470now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5471skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5472make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5473same code linked statically.
5474
5475 * New Getopt
5476
5477GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5478version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5479continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5480Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5481added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5482future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5483
5484 * Bugs fixed
5485
5486The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5487Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5488See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5489
5490
5491*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5492
5493 * New machines supported (host and target)
5494
5495Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5496NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5497Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5498
5499 * Almost SCO Unix support
5500
5501We had hoped to support:
5502SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5503(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5504that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5505about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5506
5507 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5508
5509GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5510debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5511is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5512send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5513reqired (if any).
5514
5515 * New Readline
5516
5517GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5518is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5519required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5520
5521 * Bugs fixed
5522
5523The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5524Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5525See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5526
5527 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5528
5529GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5530supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5531symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5532
5533Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5534mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5535debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5536mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5537version 2.
5538
5539Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5540really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5541line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5542variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5543situation somewhat.
5544
5545When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5546However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5547methods.
5548
5549We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5550DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5551encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5552
5553
5554*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5555
5556 * Improved configuration
5557
5558Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5559Porting BFD is simpler.
5560
5561 * Stepping improved
5562
5563The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5564of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5565in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5566function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5567
5568 * Bug fixing
5569
5570Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5571
5572 * New host supported (not target)
5573
5574Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5575
5576
5577*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5578
5579 * Multiple source language support
5580
5581GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5582It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5583and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5584language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5585You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5586`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5587
5588 * GDB and Modula-2
5589
5590GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5591currently under development at the State University of New York at
5592Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5593continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5594
5595Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5596debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5597symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5598
5599There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5600in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5601
5602 * set write on/off
5603
5604GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5605a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5606the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5607by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5608effect immediately.
5609
5610 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5611
5612When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5613shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5614The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5615examining core files.
5616
5617 * set listsize
5618
5619You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5620The default is 10.
5621
5622 * New machines supported (host and target)
5623
5624SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5625Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5626Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5627
5628 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5629
5630IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5631
5632 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5633
5634AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5635AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5636Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5637
5638 * New remote interfaces
5639
5640AMD 29000 Adapt
5641AMD 29000 Minimon
5642
5643
5644*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5645
5646 * New Facilities
5647
5648Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5649
5650Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5651target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5652is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5653remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5654remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5655also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5656using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5657stub on the target system.
5658
5659New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5660
5661GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5662library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5663object file types such as a.out and coff.
5664
5665There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5666refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5667
5668
5669 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5670
5671All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5672by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5673
5674For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5675``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5676Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5677
5678What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5679print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5680will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5681all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5682
5683confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5684 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5685 it is already running. Default is ON.
5686
5687editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5688 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5689 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5690 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5691 Default is ON.
5692
5693history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5694 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5695 or the value of the environment variable
5696 GDBHISTFILE.
5697
5698history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5699 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5700 HISTSIZE.
5701
5702history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5703 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5704 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5705
5706history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5707 history expansion will be performed on
5708 command line input. The default is OFF.
5709
5710radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5711 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5712 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5713
5714height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5715 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5716 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5717 variable TERM.
5718
5719width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5720 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5721 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5722 variable TERM.
5723
5724Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5725``set width'' instead.
5726
5727print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5728 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5729 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5730 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5731
5732print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5733 is OFF.
5734
5735print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5736 "raw" form if off.
5737
5738print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5739 like instructions.
5740
5741print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5742
5743
5744 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5745
5746The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5747new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5748are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5749window.
5750
5751
5752 * Support for Shared Libraries
5753
5754GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5755Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5756before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5757happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5758At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5759from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5760shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5761It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5762
5763sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5764 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5765 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5766
5767info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5768
5769
5770 * Watchpoints
5771
5772A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5773expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5774tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5775quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5776problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5777more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5778
5779watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5780
5781info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5782
5783delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5784disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5785enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5786
5787
5788 * C++ multiple inheritance
5789
5790When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5791for C++ programs.
5792
5793 * C++ exception handling
5794
5795Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5796ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5797the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5798handler's context).
5799
5800catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5801 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5802 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5803
5804info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5805 current stack frame.
5806
5807
5808 * Minor command changes
5809
5810The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5811command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5812is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5813
5814The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5815at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5816frames without printing.
5817
5818 * New directory command
5819
5820'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5821The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5822about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5823with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5824find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5825
5826 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5827
5828For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5829for more details.
5830
5831GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5832two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5833Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5834where the program that you are debugging will run.
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