Static tracepoints support, and UST integration.
[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 7.1
5
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6* C++ Improvements:
7
8 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
9
10 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
11 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
12 For example:
13 namespace A
14 {
15 class B { };
16 void foo (B) { }
17 }
18 ...
19 A::B b
20 foo(b)
21 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
22 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
23 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
24
25 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
26
27 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
28 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
29 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
30 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
31 entry.
32 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
33 mentioned flavors of operators.
34
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35 ** static const class members
36
37 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
38 class definition has been fixed.
39
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40* Windows Thread Information Block access.
41
42 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
43 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
44 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
45 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
46 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
47 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
48
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49* Static tracepoints
50
51 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
52 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
53 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
54 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
55 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
56 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
57 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
58 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
59 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
60 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
61 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
62 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
63 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
64 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
65 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
66 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
67 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
68 the "New remote packets" section below.
69
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70* New remote packets
71
72qGetTIBAddr
73
74 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
75
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76qRelocInsn
77
78 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
79 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
80 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
81 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
82 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
83 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
84
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85qTfSTM, qTsSTM
86
87 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
88
89qTSTMat
90
91 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
92 program.
93
94qXfer:statictrace:read
95
96 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
97 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
98 to gdb's qSupported query.
99
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100* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
101 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
102 a directory.
103
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104* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
105
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106 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
107 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
108 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
109 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
110
111 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
112 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
113 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
114 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
115 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
116 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
117 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
118
119 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
120 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 121
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122 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
123
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124* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
125 it understands register description.
126
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127* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
128
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129* X86 general purpose registers
130
131 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
132 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
133 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
134 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
135 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
136
95a42b64 137* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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138 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
139 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
140 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
141 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
142 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 143
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144* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
145 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
146 in the specified file.
147
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148* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
149 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
150 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
151 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
152 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
153 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
154 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
155 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
156 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
157 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
158
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159* New commands
160
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161eval template, expressions...
162 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
163 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
164
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165set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
166show target-file-system-kind
167 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
168 names.
169
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170save breakpoints <filename>
171 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
172 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
173 definitions, use the `source' command.
174
175`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
176is now deprecated.
177
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178info static-tracepoint-markers
179 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
180
181strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
182 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
183 function, line, address, or marker ID.
184
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185* Python scripting
186
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187** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
188 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
189 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
190 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
191 GDB using Python' in the manual.
192
adc36818 193** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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194 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
195 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
196 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 197
fa33c3cd 198** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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199 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
200
201** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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202
203** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 204
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205** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
206
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207** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
208 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
209 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
210
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211* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
212there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
213tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
214regular breakpoints.
215
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216* New targets
217
218ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
219
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220* D language support.
221 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
222 language.
223
bfbf3774 224*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 225
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226* C++ Improvements
227
228 ** Namespace Support
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229
230 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
231 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
232 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
233 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
234 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
235
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236 ** Bug Fixes
237
238 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
239 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
240 qualified name.
241
242 ** Cast Operators
243
244 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
245 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
246
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247* New targets
248
249Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 250Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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251
252* New Simulators
253
254Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 255Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 256
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257* Multi-program debugging.
258
259 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
260 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
261 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
262 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
263 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
264 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
265 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
266 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
267
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268* New tracing features
269
270 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
271
272 ** Trace state variables
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273
274 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
275 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
276 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
277 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
278 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
279 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
280 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
281 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
282 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
283 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 284
d5551862 285 ** Fast tracepoints
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286
287 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
288 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
289 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
290 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
291 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
292 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
293 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
294 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
295 the regular trace command.
296
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297 ** Disconnected tracing
298
299 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
300 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
301 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
302 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
303 connection is lost unexpectedly.
304
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305 ** Trace files
306
307 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
308 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
309 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
310 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
311 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
312 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
313 <name>".
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314
315 ** Circular trace buffer
316
317 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
318 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
319 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
320 not be available for all target agents.
321
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322* Changed commands
323
324disassemble
325 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
326 the arguments to be comma-separated.
327
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328info variables
329 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
330 which only declare a variable are not shown.
331
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332source
333 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
334 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
335 support.
336
337 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
338 "set script-extension" (see below).
339
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340* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
341
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342record save [<FILENAME>]
343 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
344 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
345
346record restore <FILENAME>
347 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
348 earlier time, for replay debugging.
349
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350add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
351 Add a new inferior.
352
353clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
354 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
355 inferior has loaded.
356
357remove-inferior ID
358 Remove an inferior.
359
360maint info program-spaces
361 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
362
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363set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
364show remote interrupt-sequence
365 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
366 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
367 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
368 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
369 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
370
371set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
372show remote interrupt-on-connect
373 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
374 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
375 Linux kernel.
376
377set remotebreak [on | off]
378show remotebreak
379Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
380
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381tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
382 Create or modify a trace state variable.
383
384info tvariables
385 List trace state variables and their values.
386
387delete tvariable $NAME ...
388 Delete one or more trace state variables.
389
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390teval EXPR, ...
391 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
392 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
393
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394ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
395 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
396
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397* New expression syntax
398
399 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
400 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
401
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402* New options
403
404set follow-exec-mode new|same
405show follow-exec-mode
406 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
407 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
408 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
409
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410set default-collect EXPR, ...
411show default-collect
412 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
413 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
414 such as registers or a critical global variable.
415
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416set disconnected-tracing
417show disconnected-tracing
418 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
419 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
420 upon disconnection.
421
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422set circular-trace-buffer
423show circular-trace-buffer
424 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
425 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
426 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
427 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
428
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429set script-extension off|soft|strict
430show script-extension
431 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
432 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
433 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
434 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
435 evaluation failed.
436 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
437
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438set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
439show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
440 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
441 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
442 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
443 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
444 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
445 is on.
446
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447* Python API Improvements
448
449 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
450 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
451 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
452
453 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
454 `is_base_class' attribute.
455
456 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
457
458 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
459 evaluate an expression.
460
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461* New remote packets
462
463QTDV
464 Define a trace state variable.
465
466qTV
467 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
468
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469QTDisconnected
470 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
471
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472QTBuffer:circular
473 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
474
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475qTfP, qTsP
476 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
477
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478* Bug fixes
479
480Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
481
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482Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
483much more reliable. In particular:
484 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
485 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
486 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
487 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
488 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
489 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
490 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
491 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
492 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
493 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
494 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
495 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
496 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
497 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
498 non-threaded programs.
499
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500PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
501This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
502libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
503executable program.
504
abc7453d 505*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 506
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507* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
508dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
509them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
510for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
511"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
512
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513* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
514breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
515or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
516the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
517for tracepoint actions.
518
e6158f16 519* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
7280022e 520in hex as well as in symbolic form.
e6158f16 521
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522* Process record and replay
523
524 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
525 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
526 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
527 execute commands.
528
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529* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
530step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
531set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
532reverse execution.
533
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534* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
535feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5362.6.28 or later.
537
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538* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
539target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
540char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
541literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
542U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
543`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
544system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
545the installation instructions for more information.
546
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547* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
548remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
549with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
550the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
551
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552* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
553and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
554
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555* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
556now complete on file names.
557
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558* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
559completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
560For instance, consider:
561
562 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
563 # struct example variable;
564 (gdb) p variable.
565
566If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
567completions will be "f1" and "f2".
568
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569* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
570the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
571
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572* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
573operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
574macros.
575
47a3467a 576* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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577the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
578implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
579
580* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
581registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
582can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
583and simulator targets may also provide them.
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585* New remote packets
586
587qSearch:memory:
588 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
589
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590QStartNoAckMode
591 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
592 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
593 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
594
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595vKill
596 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
597 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
598
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599qXfer:osdata:read
600 Obtains additional operating system information
601
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602qXfer:siginfo:read
603qXfer:siginfo:write
604 Read or write additional signal information.
605
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606* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
607
608 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
609 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
610 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
611
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612* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
613source+assembly.
614
c055b101 615* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 616DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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617
618* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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619and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
620`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 621
31fffb02
CS
622* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
623with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
624
88d8a8e0
JB
625* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
626
7f99b190
JB
627* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
628
ccd213ac
DJ
629* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
630which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
631
1fddbabb 632* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 633list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 634
a0ef4274
DJ
635* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
636conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
637have also been fixed.
638
bfb8797a 639* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
640From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
641are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 642
71c25dea
TT
643* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
644example, given:
645
646 template<typename T> class C { };
647 C<char const *> c;
648
649GDB will now correctly handle all of:
650
651 ptype C<char const *>
652 ptype C<char const*>
653 ptype C<const char *>
654 ptype C<const char*>
655
ccd213ac
DJ
656* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
657
658 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
659 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
660
7ae0e2a2
UW
661 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
662 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
663 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
664
a6f3e723
SL
665 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
666 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
667
da8bd9a3
DJ
668 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
669 gdbserver.
670
d70e31dd
DE
671 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
672 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
673
674 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
675 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
676 as appropriate.
677
d57a3c85
TJB
678* Python scripting
679
680 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
681 available is determined at configure time.
682
d8906c6f
TJB
683 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
684
aadc346a
JB
685* Ada tasking support
686
687 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
688 been introduced:
689
690 info tasks
691 Print the list of Ada tasks.
692 info task N
693 Print detailed information about task number N.
694 task
695 Print the task number of the current task.
696 task N
697 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
698
adb483fe
DJ
699* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
700add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
701
2277426b
PA
702* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
703
704 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
705 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
706 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
707 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
708 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
709 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
710 below.
711
08d16641
PA
712* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
713"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
714information.
715
e35359c5
UW
716* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
717to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
718architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
719See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
720more information.
721
85e747d2
UW
722* Multi-architecture debugging.
723
724 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
725 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
726 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
727 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
728 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
729
730* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
731use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
732Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
733powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
734--enable-targets configure option.
735
11ade57a
PA
736* Non-stop mode debugging.
737
738 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
739 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
740 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
741 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
742 section in the user manual for more information.
743
744 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
745 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
746 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
747 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
748 extensions on linux targets.
749
d7713ae0 750* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 751
a96d9b2e
SDJ
752catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
753 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
754 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
755 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
756 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
757 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
758 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
759 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
760 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
761
08388c79
DE
762find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
763 val1 [, val2, ...]
764 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
765
d57a3c85
TJB
766maint set python print-stack
767maint show python print-stack
768 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
769
770python [CODE]
771 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
772
d7713ae0
EZ
773macro define
774macro list
775macro undef
776 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
777 interactively.
778
779info os processes
780 Show operating system information about processes.
781
2277426b
PA
782info inferiors
783 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
784
785inferior NUM
786 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
787
788detach inferior NUM
789 Detach from inferior number NUM.
790
791kill inferior NUM
792 Kill inferior number NUM.
793
d7713ae0
EZ
794* New options
795
3285f3fe
UW
796set spu stop-on-load
797show spu stop-on-load
798 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
799
ff1a52c6
UW
800set spu auto-flush-cache
801show spu auto-flush-cache
802 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
803 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
804
d7713ae0
EZ
805set sh calling-convention
806show sh calling-convention
807 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
808
e0a3ce09 809set debug timestamp
75feb17d 810show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
811 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
812
813set disassemble-next-line
814show disassemble-next-line
815 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
816 the debuggee stops.
817
818set remote noack-packet
819show remote noack-packet
820 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
821 under "New remote packets."
822
823set remote query-attached-packet
824show remote query-attached-packet
825 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
826
827set remote read-siginfo-object
828show remote read-siginfo-object
829 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
830 packet.
831
832set remote write-siginfo-object
833show remote write-siginfo-object
834 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
835 packet.
836
40ab02ce
MS
837set remote reverse-continue
838show remote reverse-continue
839 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
840
841set remote reverse-step
842show remote reverse-step
843 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
844
d7713ae0
EZ
845set displaced-stepping
846show displaced-stepping
847 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
848 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
849 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
850
851set debug displaced
852show debug displaced
853 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
854
855maint set internal-error
856maint show internal-error
857 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
858
859maint set internal-warning
860maint show internal-warning
861 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 862
ccd213ac
DJ
863set exec-wrapper
864show exec-wrapper
865unset exec-wrapper
866 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 867
aad4b048
JB
868set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
869show multiple-symbols
870 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
871 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
872 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
873
74960c60
VP
874set breakpoint always-inserted
875show breakpoint always-inserted
876 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
877 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
878 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
879
0428b8f5
DJ
880set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
881show arm fallback-mode
882set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
883show arm force-mode
884 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
885 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
886 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
887 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
888
10568435
JK
889set disable-randomization
890show disable-randomization
891 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
892 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
893 multiple debugging sessions.
894
d7713ae0
EZ
895set non-stop
896show non-stop
897 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
898 a breakpoint.
899
b3eb342c 900set target-async
d7713ae0 901show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
902 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
903 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
904 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
905 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
906
6c7a06a3
TT
907set target-wide-charset
908show target-wide-charset
909 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
910 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
911
84603566
SL
912set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
913show tcp auto-retry
914set tcp connect-timeout
915show tcp connect-timeout
916 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
917 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
918 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
919
17a37d48
PP
920set libthread-db-search-path
921show libthread-db-search-path
922 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
923 libthread_db.
924
d4db2f36
PA
925set schedule-multiple (on|off)
926show schedule-multiple
927 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
928 the current process.
929
4e5d721f
DE
930set stack-cache
931show stack-cache
932 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
933 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
934 affecting correctness.
935
910c5da8
JB
936set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
937show interactive-mode
938 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
939 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
940 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
941 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
942 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
943
2277426b
PA
944* Removed commands
945
946info forks
947 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
948 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
949 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
950 command.
951
952fork NUM
953 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
954 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
955 alias for the `fork' command.
956
957process PID
958 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
959 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
960 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
961
962delete fork NUM
963 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
964 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
965 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
966 fork' command.
967
968detach fork NUM
969 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
970 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
971 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
972 fork' command.
973
a80b95ba
TG
974* New native configurations
975
976x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
977
b8bfd3ed
JB
978x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
979
75a2d5e7
TT
980* New targets
981
c28c63d8 982Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 983x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 984x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 985S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 986
6de3146c
PA
987* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
988 (mingw32ce) debugging.
989
d5cbbe6e
JB
990* Removed commands
991
992catch load
993catch unload
994 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
995
75feb17d 996*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 997
af5ca30d
NH
998* New native configurations
999
1000NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1001Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1002
1003* New targets
1004
1005NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1006Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1007
7a404eba
PA
1008* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1009
1010 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1011 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1012 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1013 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1014
430ebac9
PA
1015* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1016(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1017
fe6fbf8b 1018* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1019is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1020
1021* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1022including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1023and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1024
10665d76
JB
1025* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1026accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1027more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1028
7cc46491
DJ
1029* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1030
d71340b8
DJ
1031* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1032registers on PowerPC targets.
1033
523c4513
DJ
1034* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1035targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1036
a6b151f1
DJ
1037* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1038commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1039
2d717e4f
DJ
1040* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1041extended-remote mode.
1042
24a836bd 1043* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1044The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1045error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1046The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1047
d0c678e6
UW
1048* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1049building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1050target architectures.
1051
d64a946d
TJB
1052* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1053Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1054now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1055stored in two consecutive float registers.
1056
ee163bf5
VP
1057* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1058breakpoints now.
1059
b93b6ca7 1060* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1061Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1062include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1063 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1064 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1065 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1066 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1067 of an assignment
1068 - Improved command completion in Ada
1069 - Several bug fixes
1070
d001be7a
DJ
1071* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1072process.
1073
a6b151f1
DJ
1074* New commands
1075
6d53d0af
JB
1076set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1077show print frame-arguments
1078 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1079 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1080
a6b151f1
DJ
1081remote put
1082remote get
1083remote delete
1084 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1085
1086* New MI commands
1087
1088-target-file-put
1089-target-file-get
1090-target-file-delete
1091 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1092
1093* New remote packets
1094
1095vFile:open:
1096vFile:close:
1097vFile:pread:
1098vFile:pwrite:
1099vFile:unlink:
1100 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1101
2d717e4f
DJ
1102vAttach
1103 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1104 mode.
1105
1106vRun
1107 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1108
8d5f9c6f 1109*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1110
19d378fc
MS
1111* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1112bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1113Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1114
3a40aaa0
UW
1115* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1116symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1117-Bsymbolic linker option.
1118
a6ec25f2
BW
1119* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1120recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1121is not supported.
1122
6dd09645
JB
1123* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1124frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1125
c9bb8148
DJ
1126* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
112732-bit or 64-bit register values.
1128
0d5de010
DJ
1129* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1130
23181151
DJ
1131* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1132target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1133a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1134
ea37ba09
DJ
1135* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1136automatically displayed as character or string data.
1137
1138* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1139arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1140as strings.
e1f48ead 1141
123dc839
DJ
1142* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1143for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1144only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1145
05a4558a
DJ
1146* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1147iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1148
7c963485
PA
1149* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1150ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1151has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1152
b18be20d
DJ
1153* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1154
0ca420ce
UW
1155* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1156
31d99776
DJ
1157* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1158layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1159segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1160
a4642986
MR
1161* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1162immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1163
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1164* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1165"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1166packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1167where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1168Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1169
1170* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1171(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1172
1173* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1174according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1175
c9bb8148
DJ
1176* New commands
1177
23776285
MR
1178set remoteflow
1179show remoteflow
1180 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1181 when debugging using remote targets.
1182
c9bb8148
DJ
1183set mem inaccessible-by-default
1184show mem inaccessible-by-default
1185 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1186 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1187 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1188 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1189 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1190
1191set breakpoint auto-hw
1192show breakpoint auto-hw
1193 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1194 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1195 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1196 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1197 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1198 including "next" and "finish".
1199
0e420bd8
JB
1200catch exception
1201catch exception unhandled
1202 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1203
1204catch assert
1205 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1206
f822c95b
DJ
1207set sysroot
1208show sysroot
1209 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1210 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1211 an alias to "set sysroot".
1212
83cc5c53
UW
1213info spu
1214 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1215 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1216 architecture.
1217
bd372731
MK
1218* New native configurations
1219
1220OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1221
23181151
DJ
1222set tdesc filename
1223unset tdesc filename
1224show tdesc filename
1225 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1226 not query the target for its built-in description.
1227
c9bb8148
DJ
1228* New targets
1229
54fe9172 1230OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1231MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1232Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1233
6dd09645
JB
1234* New remote packets
1235
1236QPassSignals:
1237 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1238 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1239
23181151
DJ
1240qXfer:features:read:
1241 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1242 features.
6dd09645 1243
83cc5c53
UW
1244qXfer:spu:read:
1245qXfer:spu:write:
1246 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1247 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1248
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1249qXfer:libraries:read:
1250 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1251 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1252 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1253 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1254
483367ee
DJ
1255* Removed targets
1256
1257Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1258
d08950c4
UW
1259alpha*-*-osf1*
1260alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1261d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1262hppa*-*-hiux*
1263i[34567]86-ncr-*
1264i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1265i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1266i[34567]86-*-netware*
1267i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1268i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1269i[34567]86-*-sco*
1270i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1271i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1272i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1273i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1274i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1275i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1276i[34567]86-*-isc*
1277m68*-cisco*-*
1278m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1279mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1280rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1281sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1282
7ce59000
DJ
1283* Other removed features
1284
1285target abug
1286target cpu32bug
1287target est
1288target rom68k
1289
1290 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1291
ea35711c
DJ
1292target hms
1293target e7000
1294target sh3
1295target sh3e
1296
1297 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1298 H8/300.
1299
1300target ocd
1301
1302 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1303 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1304 interfaces.
1305
7ce59000
DJ
1306DWARF 1 support
1307
1308 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1309 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1310
54d61198
DJ
1311Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1312
1313 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1314 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1315 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1316 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1317
ea35711c
DJ
1318MIPS ".pdr" sections
1319
1320 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1321 in debugging information.
1322
1323Scheme support
1324
1325 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1326 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1327
1a69e1e4
DJ
1328set mips stack-arg-size
1329set mips saved-gpreg-size
1330
1331 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1332
6dd09645 1333*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1334
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1335* New targets
1336
1337Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1338Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1339
6aec2e11
DJ
1340* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1341(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1342running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1343
1344* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1345Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1346supported.
1347
17218d91
DJ
1348* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1349broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1350
9ebce043
DJ
1351* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1352stub provides the required support.
1353
7d3d3ece
DJ
1354* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1355longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1356
4f8253f3
JB
1357* New commands
1358
1359set substitute-path
1360unset substitute-path
1361show substitute-path
1362 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1363 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1364 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1365 between compilation and debugging.
1366
9fa66fd7
AS
1367set trace-commands
1368show trace-commands
1369 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1370 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1371 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1372
1f5befc1
DJ
1373* REMOVED features
1374
1375The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1376
2ec3381a
DJ
1377Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1378an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1379
3d00d119
DJ
1380The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1381
be2a5f71
DJ
1382* New remote packets
1383
1384qSupported:
1385 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1386 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1387 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1388 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1389 target.
1390
0876f84a
DJ
1391qXfer:auxv:read:
1392 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1393 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1394
9ebce043
DJ
1395qXfer:memory-map:read:
1396 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1397 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1398
1399vFlashErase:
1400vFlashWrite:
1401vFlashDone:
1402 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1403
0876f84a
DJ
1404* Removed remote packets
1405
1406qPart:auxv:read:
1407 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1408 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1409
e374b601 1410*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1411
96309189
MS
1412* New targets
1413
1414Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1415
1416Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1417
53e5f3cf
AS
1418* New commands
1419
1420init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1421 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1422
ac264b3b
MS
1423The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1424
1425checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1426
1427restart <n> Return the program state to a
1428 previously saved state.
1429
1430info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1431
1432delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1433
1434set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1435 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1436
1437info forks List forks of the user program that
1438 are available to be debugged.
1439
1440fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1441 forks of the user program that are
1442 available to be debugged.
1443
1444delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1445 that are available to be debugged (and
1446 kill the forked process).
1447
1448detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1449 that are available to be debugged (and
1450 allow the process to continue).
1451
3950dc3f
NS
1452* New architecture
1453
1454Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1455
0ea3f30e
DJ
1456* Improved Windows host support
1457
1458GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1459native console support, and remote communications using either
1460network sockets or serial ports.
1461
f79daebb
GM
1462* Improved Modula-2 language support
1463
1464GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1465basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1466pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1467printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1468written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1469GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1470
acab6ab2
MM
1471* REMOVED features
1472
1473The ARM rdi-share module.
1474
f4267320
DJ
1475The Netware NLM debug server.
1476
53e5f3cf 1477*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1478
e0ecbda1
MK
1479* New native configurations
1480
02a677ac 1481OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1482OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1483
d64a6579
KB
1484* New targets
1485
1486Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1487
b33a6190
AS
1488* New command line options
1489
1490--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1491--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1492 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1493--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1494 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1495 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1496 with the --command (-x) option.
1497
11dced61
AC
1498* Deprecated commands removed
1499
1500The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1501removed:
1502
1503 Command Replacement
1504 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1505 othernames set arm disassembler
1506 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1507 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1508 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1509 regs info registers
1510
6fe85783
MK
1511* New BSD user-level threads support
1512
1513It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1514library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1515configurations are:
1516
1517FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1518FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1519OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1520
1521Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1522are not yet supported.
1523
5260ca71
MS
1524* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1525(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1526
e84ecc99
AC
1527* REMOVED configurations and files
1528
1529VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1530Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1531National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1532
31e35378
JB
1533* New "set print array-indexes" command
1534
1535After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1536when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1537behavior.
1538
e85e5c83
MK
1539* VAX floating point support
1540
1541GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1542
d91e9901
AS
1543* User-defined command support
1544
1545In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1546to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1547section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1548
f2cb65ca
MC
1549*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1550
f47b1503
AS
1551* New command line option
1552
1553GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1554debugging.
1555
f2cb65ca
MC
1556* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1557
1558GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1559information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1560by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1561proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1562to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1563
d08c0230
AC
1564* Internationalization
1565
1566When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1567internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1568continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1569
117ea3cf
PH
1570* Ada
1571
1572Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1573implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1574into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1575
d08c0230
AC
1576* New native configurations
1577
1578GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1579
1580* Remote 'p' packet
1581
1582GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1583packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1584
1585* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1586
1587GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1588The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1589features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1590i386 application).
1591
1592GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1593compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1594continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1595configurations:
1596
1597hppa-*-hpux
1598ia64-*-aix
1599mips-*-irix*
1600*-*-lynx
1601mips-*-linux-gnu
1602sds protocol
1603xdr protocol
1604powerpc bdm protocol
1605
1606Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1607made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1608
1609* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1610
1611Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1612been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1613configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1614permanently REMOVED.
1615
1616h8300-*-*
1617mcore-*-*
1618mn10300-*-*
1619ns32k-*-*
1620sh64-*-*
1621v850-*-*
1622
ebb7c577
AC
1623*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1624
1625* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1626
1627When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1628heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1629been fixed.
1630
1631* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1632
1633When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1634fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1635IRIX long double values).
1636
1637* VAX and "next"
1638
1639A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1640command. This problem has been fixed.
1641
860660cb 1642*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1643
0dea2468
AC
1644* Fix for ``many threads''
1645
1646On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1647rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1648error message:
1649
1650 ptrace: No such process.
1651 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1652
1653This problem has been fixed.
1654
2c07db7a
AC
1655* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1656
1657Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1658GDB to dump core).
1659
c23968a2
JB
1660* New ``start'' command.
1661
1662This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1663
71009278
MK
1664* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1665
1666Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1667live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1668platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1669
1670FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1671FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1672NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1673NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1674NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1675OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1676OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1677OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1678OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1679
3c0b7db2
AC
1680* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1681
1682Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1683These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1684of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1685call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1686signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1687
73cc75f3
AC
1688Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1689features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1690include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1691
7243600a
BF
1692* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1693
6f606e1c
MK
1694* New native configurations
1695
97dc871c 1696GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1697OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1698OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1699OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1700OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1701NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1702OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1703
a1b461bf
AC
1704* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1705
1706GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1707The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1708including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1709migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1710compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1711work, was also included.
1712
1713GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1714module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1715
1716h8300-*-*
1717mcore-*-*
1718mn10300-*-*
1719ns32k-*-*
1720sh64-*-*
1721v850-*-*
1722xstormy16-*-*
1723
1724Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1725made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1726
3c7012f5
AC
1727* REMOVED configurations and files
1728
1729Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1730Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1731Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1732Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1733Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1734AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1735Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1736decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1737riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1738sonymips mips-sony-*
1739sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1740
e5fe55f7
AC
1741*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1742
1743* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1744
1745The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1746GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1747command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1748program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1749with GDB".
1750
1751* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1752
1753Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1754libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1755cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1756GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1757shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1758the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1759are created.
1760
1761Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1762
1763* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1764
1765The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1766non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1767compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1768
1769* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1770
1771Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1772wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1773
1774* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1775
1776The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1777permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1778systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1779
1780* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1781
1782Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1783has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1784
1785* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1786
1787GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1788its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1789panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1790
1791* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1792
1793When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1794by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1795not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1796
faae5abe 1797*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1798
9175c9a3
MC
1799* Removed --with-mmalloc
1800
1801Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1802conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1803
3cc87ec0
MK
1804* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1805
1806The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1807the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1808and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1809you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1810
f0424ef6
MK
1811* Revised SPARC target
1812
1813The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1814FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1815support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1816from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1817(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1818
59659be2
ILT
1819* New C++ demangler
1820
1821GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1822names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1823with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1824programs.
1825
9e08b29b
DJ
1826* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1827
1828GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1829arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1830encountered these.
1831
8dfe8985
DC
1832* C++ nested types and namespaces
1833
1834GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1835improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1836is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1837Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1838namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1839"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1840frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1841if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1842GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1843
cced5e27
MK
1844* New native configurations
1845
1846NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1847OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1848OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1849OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1850OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1851
b4b4b794
KI
1852* New debugging protocols
1853
1854M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1855
7989c619
AC
1856* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1857
1858The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1859and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1860tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1861
5994185b
AC
1862* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1863
1864Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1865been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1866configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1867permanently REMOVED.
1868
1869Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1870Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1871Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1872Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1873Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1874AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1875Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1876decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1877riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1878sonymips mips-sony-*
1879sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1880
0ddabb4c
AC
1881* REMOVED configurations and files
1882
1883SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1884SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1885Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1886Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1887H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1888HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1889HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1890HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1891PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1892386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1893Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1894 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1895 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1896SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1897SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1898Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1899Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1900
c7f1390e
DJ
1901*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1902
1fe43d45
AC
1903* Objective-C
1904
1905Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1906integrated into GDB.
1907
e6beb428
AC
1908* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1909
1910DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1911information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1912By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1913backtraces.
1914
1915The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1916have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1917DWARF 2 CFI support.
1918
1919* Hosted file I/O.
1920
1921GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1922file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1923remote protocol documentation for details.
1924
1925* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1926
1927All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1928architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1929to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1930ppc32 on ppc64).
1931
1932* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1933
1934GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1935per-thread variables.
1936
1937* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1938
1939GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1940GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1941
1942* Separate debug info.
1943
1944GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1945automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1946of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1947system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1948and optional debug files.
1949
1950* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1951
1952DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1953describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1954debugger.
1955
1956GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1957for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1958
1959* Java
1960
1961A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1962Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1963considered "useable".
1964
85f8f974
DJ
1965* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1966
1967The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1968commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1969kernel.
1970
0fac0b41
DJ
1971* GDB supports logging output to a file
1972
1973There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1974used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1975
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1976* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1977
1978The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1979disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1980command.
1981
e286caf2 1982* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1983
1984The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1985registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1986
d28f9cdf
DJ
1987* Profiling support
1988
1989A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1990be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1991session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1992"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1993data, for more informative profiling results.
1994
da0f9dcd
AC
1995* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1996
1997The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1998option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1999"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2000
2001Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2002removed.
2003
fb9b6b35
JJ
2004Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2005Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2006Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2007 in a subsequent -var-update.
2008
954a4db8
MK
2009* New native configurations.
2010
2011FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2012
6760f9e6
JB
2013* Multi-arched targets.
2014
b4263afa 2015HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2016Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2017
1b831c93
AC
2018* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2019
2020Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2021been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2022configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2023permanently REMOVED.
2024
8b0e5691 2025Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2026Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2027H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2028HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2029HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2030HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2031PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2032Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2033 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2034 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2035Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2036Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2037
5835abe7
NC
2038* REMOVED configurations and files
2039
2040V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2041Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2042IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2043i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2044i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2045i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2046HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2047 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2048 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2049Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2050Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2051Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2052OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2053I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2054
a094c6fb
AC
2055* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2056
2057The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2058the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2059context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2060address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2061The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2062
299ffc64 2063*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2064
46248966
AC
2065* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2066
2067When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2068`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2069in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2070library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2071shared libs like mad''.
2072
b9d14705 2073* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2074
b9d14705
DJ
2075Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2076the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2077arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2078powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2079
e0e9281e
JB
2080* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2081
2082GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2083and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2084they expand.
2085
dd73b9bb
AC
2086The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2087invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2088
2089The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2090macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2091
e0e9281e
JB
2092Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2093information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2094your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2095information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2096
2250ee0c
CV
2097* Multi-arched targets.
2098
6e3ba3b8
JT
2099DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2100DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2101NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2102National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2103Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2104Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2105
cd9bfe15 2106* New targets.
e33ce519 2107
456f8b9d
DB
2108Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2109
e33ce519 2110
da8ca43d
JT
2111* New native configurations
2112
2113Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2114SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2115MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2116UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2117
cd9bfe15
AC
2118* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2119
2120Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2121been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2122configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2123permanently REMOVED.
2124
92eb23c5 2125Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2126OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2127IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2128Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2129Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2130Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2131i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2132i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2133i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2134HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2135 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2136 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2137I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2138
db034ac5
AC
2139* OBSOLETE languages
2140
2141CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2142
cd9bfe15
AC
2143* REMOVED configurations and files
2144
2145AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2146A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2147AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2148AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2149AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2150
2151testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2152
20f01a46
DH
2153* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2154
2155This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2156commands. The default is 1024.
2157
a5941fbf
MK
2158* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2159
2160Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2161
89743e04
MS
2162* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2163
2164These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2165to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2166from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2167
9fb14e79
JB
2168* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2169
2170The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2171including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2172of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2173
2037aebb
AC
2174*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2175
2176* New targets.
2177
2178Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2179
2180* Bug fixes
2181
2182gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2183mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2184Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2185
2186gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2187dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2188Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2189
2190Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2191Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2192By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2193
2194i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2195avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2196By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2197
37057839 2198*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2199
1a703748
MS
2200* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2201
2202This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2203really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2204In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2205target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2206This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2207(notably embedded) targets.
2208
cefd4ef5
MS
2209* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2210
55241689
AC
2211This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2212process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2213GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2214hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2215
352ed7b4
MS
2216* New command line option
2217
2218GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2219
2220* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2221
2222There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2223command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2224a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2225be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2226open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2227issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2228a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2229it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2230GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2231is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2232
fe419ffc
RE
2233* Changes in ARM configurations.
2234
2235Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2236configuration is fully multi-arch.
2237
eb7cedd9
MK
2238* New native configurations
2239
fe419ffc 2240ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2241x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2242AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2243Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2244
c9f63e6b
CV
2245* New targets
2246
2247Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2248
9b4ff276
AC
2249* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2250
2251Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2252been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2253configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2254permanently REMOVED.
2255
2256AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2257A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2258AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2259AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2260AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2261
b4ceaee6 2262testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2263
e2caac18
AC
2264* REMOVED configurations and files
2265
2266TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2267WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2268PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2269PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2270PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2271Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2272Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2273 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2274SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2275Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2276Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2277ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2278Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2279
c2a727fa
TT
2280* Changes to command line processing
2281
2282The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2283for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2284
467d8519
TT
2285* Changes to key bindings
2286
2287There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2288
7072a954
AC
2289*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2290
2291Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2292
2293Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2294corrupted.
2295
2296Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2297
2298Numerous documentation fixes.
2299
2300Numerous testsuite fixes.
2301
34f47bc4 2302*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2303
2304* New native configurations
2305
2306Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2307x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2308MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2309MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2310ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2311s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2312
bf64bfd6
AC
2313* New targets
2314
def90278 2315Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2316CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2317UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2318
17e78a56 2319* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2320
2321x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2322Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2323Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2324 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2325TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2326WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2327Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2328PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2329PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2330PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2331SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2332Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2333ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2334Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2335
17e78a56
AC
2336stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2337kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2338
7fcca85b
AC
2339Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2340been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2341configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2342permanently REMOVED.
2343
a196c81c 2344* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2345
2346Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2347Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2348Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2349ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2350Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2351ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2352
6d6b80e5 2353* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2354
6d6b80e5 2355GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2356sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2357present.
2358
bf64bfd6
AC
2359* Other news:
2360
e23194cb
EZ
2361* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2362
2363* The MI enabled by default.
2364
2365The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2366revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2367engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2368using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2369which is now deprecated.
2370
2371* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2372
2373GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2374main features are supported:
2375
2376 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2377
2378 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2379 extension;
2380
2381 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2382
2383 - a Pascal expression parser.
2384
2385However, some important features are not yet supported.
2386
2387 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2388
2389 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2390
2391 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2392 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2393
2394 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2395
2396 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2397
2398* Changes in completion.
2399
2400Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2401to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2402users expect at the shell prompt.
2403
2404Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2405`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2406program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2407files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2408be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2409considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2410name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2411
2412`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2413
2414* New platform-independent commands:
2415
2416It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2417hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2418documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2419
2420* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2421
d7275149
MK
2422Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2423revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2424many threads as your system allows you to have.
2425
e23194cb
EZ
2426Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2427
d7275149
MK
2428Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2429multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2430
2431* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2432
2433Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2434
e23194cb
EZ
2435GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2436debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2437supported.)
2438
2439* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2440
2441Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2442breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2443implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2444put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2445and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2446registers.
2447
2448The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2449debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2450watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2451
2452* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2453
2454New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2455the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2456
2457New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2458display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2459IDT.
2460
2461New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2462from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2463New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2464a given linear address.
2465
2466GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2467program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2468which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2469
2470DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2471
6c56c069
EZ
2472It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2473
e23194cb
EZ
2474* Changes in documentation.
2475
2476All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2477Documentation License.
2478
2479Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2480manual.
2481
2482TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2483
2484Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2485manual.
2486
2487The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2488documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2489hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2490
5d6640b1
AC
2491* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2492
2493The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2494``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2495contents of this file.
2496
1a1d8446
AC
2497* gdba.el deleted
2498
2499GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2500
9debab2f 2501*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2502
c63ce875
EZ
2503* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2504
2505Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2506programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2507displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2508greater level of detail.
2509
2510* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2511
2512It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2513bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2514on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2515written.
2516
2517* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2518
2519The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2520necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2521machines ``out of the box''.
2522
2523The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2524possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2525signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2526would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2527interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2528
2529It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2530standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2531even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2532and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2533terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2534
2535The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2536enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2537also works.
2538
2539DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2540GDB.
2541
2542It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2543directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2544times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2545breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2546
ed9a39eb
JM
2547* New native configurations
2548
2549ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2550PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2551
7a292a7a
SS
2552* New targets
2553
96baa820 2554Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2555x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2556PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2557TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2558
085dd6e6
JM
2559* OBSOLETE configurations
2560
2561Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2562Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2563Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2564ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2565Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2566
9debab2f
AC
2567Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2568but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2569these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2570be permanently REMOVED.
2571
5330533d
SS
2572* Gould support removed
2573
2574Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2575
bc9e5bbf
AC
2576* New features for SVR4
2577
2578On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2579without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2580load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2581
2582* Many C++ enhancements
2583
2584C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2585in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2586
adf40b2e
JM
2587* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2588
2589A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2590sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2591with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2592``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2593
2594 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2595 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2596
43e526b9
JM
2597* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2598
2599A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2600expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2601instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2602
2603The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2604added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2605
96baa820
JM
2606* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2607
2608The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2609``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2610include ``set remote P-packet''.
2611
11cf8741
JM
2612* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2613
2614The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2615accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2616``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2617
7876dd43
DB
2618* ``apropos'' command added.
2619
2620The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2621documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2622try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2623
bc9e5bbf
AC
2624* New MI interface
2625
2626A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2627interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2628process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2629"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2630enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2631
2632 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2633
c906108c
SS
2634*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2635
2636* New native configurations
2637
2638HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2639HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2640M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2641
2642* New targets
2643
2644Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2645Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2646Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2647
2648* OBSOLETE configurations
2649
2650Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2651
2652Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2653but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2654these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2655be permanently REMOVED.
2656
2657* ANSI/ISO C
2658
2659As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2660buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2661containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2662use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2663available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2664configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2665information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2666already.
2667
2668* Readline 2.2
2669
2670GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2671
2672* set extension-language
2673
2674You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2675languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2676you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2677 set extension-language .c c++
2678The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2679and their associated languages.
2680
2681* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2682
2683When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2684you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2685PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2686
2687 set processor NAME
2688
2689sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2690following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2691
2692 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2693 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2694 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2695 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2696 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2697 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2698 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2699 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2700 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2701 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2702 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2703
2704At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2705special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2706registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2707only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2708
2709* HP-UX support
2710
2711Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2712more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2713library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2714support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2715for xdb and dbx commands.
2716
2717* Catchpoints
2718
2719HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2720generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2721to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2722
2723This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2724argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2725output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2726
2727* Debugging across forks
2728
2729On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2730in the inferior.
2731
2732* TUI
2733
2734HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2735it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2736configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2737
2738* GDB remote protocol additions
2739
2740A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2741Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2742fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2743allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2744
2745For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2746full 64-bit address. The command
2747
2748 set remoteaddresssize 32
2749
2750can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2751the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2752will be discarded.
2753
2754In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2755command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2756
2757 maint packet heythere
2758
2759sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2760disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2761time.
2762
2763The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2764target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2765downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2766
2767* Tracing can collect general expressions
2768
2769You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2770further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2771doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2772
2773* mask-address variable for Mips
2774
2775For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2776a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2777of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2778
2779* Higher serial baud rates
2780
2781GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2782230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2783to achieve all of these rates.)
2784
2785* i960 simulator
2786
2787The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2788builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2789
2790
2791*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2792
2793* New native configurations
2794
2795Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2796Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2797Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2798PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2799PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2800Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2801Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2802
2803* New targets
2804
2805Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2806Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2807Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2808Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2809MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2810MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2811MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2812Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2813Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2814Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2815NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2816
2817* New debugging protocols
2818
2819ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2820M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2821DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2822PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2823PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2824Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2825
2826* DWARF 2
2827
2828All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2829format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2830information.
2831
2832* Java frontend
2833
2834GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2835only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2836
2837* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2838
2839For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2840loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2841locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2842
2843* Live range splitting
2844
2845GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2846range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2847more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2848
2849* Hurd support
2850
2851GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2852updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2853
2854* ARM Thumb support
2855
2856GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2857instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2858instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2859accordingly.
2860
2861* MIPS16 support
2862
2863GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2864instruction set.
2865
2866* Overlay support
2867
2868GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2869linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2870will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2871control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2872additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2873in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2874
2875* info symbol
2876
2877The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2878the symbol at the specified address.
2879
2880* Trace support
2881
2882The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2883asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2884extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2885includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2886file tracepoint.c for more details.
2887
2888* MIPS simulator
2889
2890Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2891by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2892of most MIPS variants.
2893
2894* Sparc simulator
2895
2896Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2897by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2898Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2899
2900* set architecture
2901
2902For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2903basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2904architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2905the possible architectures.
2906
2907*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2908
2909* New native configurations
2910
2911Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2912M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2913PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2914PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2915PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2916RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2917
2918* New targets
2919
2920ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2921I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2922MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2923MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2924PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2925Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2926Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2927
2928* PowerPC simulator
2929
2930The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2931contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2932PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2933basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2934performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2935
2936* Solaris 2.5
2937
2938GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2939
2940* Windows 95/NT native
2941
2942GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2943To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2944which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2945Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2946ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2947
2948* dont-repeat command
2949
2950If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2951command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2952useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2953extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2954
2955* Send break instead of ^C
2956
2957The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2958rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2959GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2960
2961* Remote protocol timeout
2962
2963The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2964that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2965to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2966
2967* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2968
2969By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2970loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2971stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2972when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2973in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2974
2975Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2976/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2977automatically on hpux10.
2978
2979* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2980
2981Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2982
2983* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2984
2985When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2986may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2987the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2988every character. The default value is 1050.
2989
2990* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2991
2992If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2993a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2994replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2995details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2996remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2997to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2998
2999* Speedups for remote debugging
3000
3001GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3002the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3003and more efficient S-record downloading.
3004
3005* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3006
3007GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3008Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3009
3010*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3011
3012* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3013
3014The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3015can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3016
3017* Remote targets use caching
3018
3019Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3020remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3021it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3022debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3023off' turns the the data cache off.
3024
3025* Remote targets may have threads
3026
3027The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3028in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3029gdb/remote.c for details.
3030
3031* NetROM support
3032
3033If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3034support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3035acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3036write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3037support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3038another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3039sequence is something like
3040
3041 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3042 load <prog>
3043 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3044
3045* Macintosh host
3046
3047GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3048may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3049it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3050available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3051device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3052directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3053scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3054mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3055
3056* Autoconf
3057
3058GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3059but does simplify configuration and building.
3060
3061* hpux10
3062
3063GDB now supports hpux10.
3064
3065*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3066
3067* New native configurations
3068
3069x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3070x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3071NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3072Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3073
3074* New targets
3075
3076A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3077HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3078CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3079PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3080WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3081
3082* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3083
3084GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3085possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3086filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3087the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3088if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3089
3090* Arguments to user-defined commands
3091
3092User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3093Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3094trivial example:
3095define adder
3096 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3097
3098To execute the command use:
3099adder 1 2 3
3100
3101Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3102Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3103use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3104
3105* New `if' and `while' commands
3106
3107This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3108commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3109expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3110execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3111terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3112`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3113if the expression is zero.
3114
3115* Fortran source language mode
3116
3117GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3118Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3119variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3120with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3121Fortran compilers.
3122
3123* Better HPUX support
3124
3125Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3126running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3127processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3128for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3129that behavior do the following before running the program:
3130
3131 adb -w a.out
3132 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3133 control-d
3134
3135This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3136To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3137
3138 adb -w a.out
3139 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3140 control-d
3141
3142You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3143the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3144external linkage.
3145
3146GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3147HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3148
3149* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3150
3151You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3152commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3153current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3154"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3155associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3156configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3157
3158* New DOS host serial code
3159
3160This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3161no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3162a PC's serial port.
3163
3164*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3165
3166* New "complete" command
3167
3168This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3169were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3170
3171* Trailing space optional in prompt
3172
3173"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3174allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3175
3176* Breakpoint hit counts
3177
3178"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3179has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3180can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3181to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3182less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3183that breakpoint.
3184
3185* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3186
3187"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3188an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3189arrays actually contain only short strings.
3190
3191* Shared library breakpoints
3192
3193In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3194breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3195
3196* Hardware watchpoints
3197
3198There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3199targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3200
55241689 3201Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3202
3203* Annotations
3204
3205Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3206and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3207
3208* Improved Irix 5 support
3209
3210GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3211
3212* Improved HPPA support
3213
3214GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3215
3216* New native configurations
3217
3218Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3219HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3220Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3221RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3222
3223* New targets
3224
3225OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3226MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3227Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3228
3229* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3230
3231There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3232This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3233
3234* Fixes
3235
3236As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3237and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3238
3239*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3240
3241* Irix 5 is now supported
3242
3243* HPPA support
3244
3245GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3246to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3247GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3248of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3249can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3250
3251
3252*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3253
3254* User visible changes:
3255
3256* Remote Debugging
3257
3258The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3259target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3260debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3261integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3262debugging info for the mips target).
3263
3264* DEC Alpha native support
3265
3266GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3267debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3268work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3269Alpha-specific notes.
3270
3271* Preliminary thread implementation
3272
3273GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3274
3275* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3276
3277This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3278to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3279for details).
3280
3281* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3282
3283This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3284mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3285call methods, ...etc.
3286
3287*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3288
3289 * User visible changes:
3290
3291Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3292supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3293other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3294somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3295
3296Filename completion now works.
3297
3298When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3299arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3300addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3301
3302All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3303vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3304should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3305your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3306to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3307
3308 * DEC alpha support
3309
3310This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3311cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3312
3313
3314*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3315
3316 * Testsuite
3317
3318This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3319The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3320via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3321
3322 * C++ demangling
3323
3324'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3325emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3326Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3327disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3328use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3329
3330 * Simulators
3331
3332GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3333So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3334Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3335
3336 * New targets supported
3337
3338H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3339H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3340SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3341Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3342IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3343
3344Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3345version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3346GO32 memory extender.
3347
3348 * New remote protocols
3349
3350MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3351
3352 * New source languages supported
3353
3354This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3355used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3356into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3357
3358
3359*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3360
3361 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3362
3363GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3364version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3365University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3366compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3367format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3368(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3369
3370Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3371
3372 * Faster and better demangling
3373
3374We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3375demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3376character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3377only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3378This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3379increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3380symbol lookups.
3381
3382`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3383from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3384compiler does not actually implement.
3385
3386 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3387
3388In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3389inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3390recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3391very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3392The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3393circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3394fix.
3395
3396The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3397release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3398
3399 * Improved configure script
3400
3401The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3402you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3403host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3404done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3405
3406We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3407version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3408`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3409The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3410only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3411We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3412
3413 * Documentation improvements
3414
3415There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3416produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3417before submitting changes.
3418
3419The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3420M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3421`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3422you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3423a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3424
3425*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3426We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3427been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3428or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3429`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3430around this problem.
3431
3432 * New features
3433
3434GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3435the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3436`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3437the target program.
3438
3439The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3440how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3441
3442 * New native hosts supported
3443
3444HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3445386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3446
3447 * New targets supported
3448
3449AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3450
3451 * New file formats supported
3452
3453BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3454HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3455
3456 * Major bug fixes
3457
3458Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3459
3460We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3461printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3462
3463We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3464for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3465release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3466
3467You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3468will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3469
3470We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3471for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3472especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3473libraries.
3474
3475The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3476information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3477command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3478any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3479when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3480
3481 * Internal improvements
3482
3483GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3484debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3485
3486GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3487Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3488symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3489contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3490shared code that handles any of them.
3491
3492 * New command line options
3493
3494We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3495
3496 * Mmalloc licensing
3497
3498The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3499General Public License.
3500
3501*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3502
3503 * Host/native/target split
3504
3505GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3506hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3507target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3508local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3509ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3510
3511The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3512GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3513is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3514code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3515any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3516built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3517handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3518
3519GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3520It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3521plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3522
3523 * New hosts supported
3524
3525HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3526386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3527386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3528
3529 * New targets supported
3530
3531Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
353268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3533
3534 * New native hosts supported
3535
3536386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3537 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3538386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3539
3540 * New file formats supported
3541
3542BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3543supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3544format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3545
3546 * New commands
3547
3548`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3549`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3550These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3551
3552`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3553
3554You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3555scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3556prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3557executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3558
3559 * C++ improvements
3560
3561We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3562info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3563symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3564
3565Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3566
3567 * Major bug fixes
3568
3569The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3570fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3571by the compiler.
3572
3573We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3574support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3575
3576John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3577slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3578that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3579purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3580the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3581mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3582
3583Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3584about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3585completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3586we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3587
3588 * AMD 29k support
3589
3590A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3591specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3592calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3593usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3594in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3595
3596We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3597Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3598of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3599resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3600
3601 * Remote interfaces
3602
3603We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3604with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3605message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3606This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3607needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3608breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3609each instruction being stepped through.
3610
3611The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3612registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3613
3614There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3615find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3616Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3617processor with a serial port.
3618
3619 * Configuration
3620
3621Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3622`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3623supported, and what files each one uses.
3624
3625 * Library changes
3626
3627There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3628disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3629Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3630disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3631
3632The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3633Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3634can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3635grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3636
3637 * Documentation
3638
3639The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3640reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3641as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3642encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3643system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3644bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3645
3646And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3647
3648
3649*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3650
3651 * Better support for C++ function names
3652
3653GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3654names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3655(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3656single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3657Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3658
3659GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3660the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3661You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3662lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3663for the list of formats.
3664
3665 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3666
3667Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3668C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3669directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3670can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3671usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3672about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3673this problem.)
3674
3675 * New 'maintenance' command
3676
3677All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3678the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3679can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3680
3681 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3682 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3683 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3684 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3685 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3686 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3687
3688The following commands are new:
3689
3690 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3691 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3692 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3693
3694 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3695
3696We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3697(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3698be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3699read after argv processing.
3700
3701 * New hosts supported
3702
3703Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3704
55241689 3705GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3706
3707We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3708is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3709for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3710masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3711fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3712It costs extra.
3713
3714 * New targets supported
3715
3716Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3717
3718 * More smarts about finding #include files
3719
3720GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3721all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3722greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3723especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3724the one that contains your sources.
3725
3726We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3727breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3728try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3729
3730 * Interesting infernals change
3731
3732GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3733section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3734target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3735stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3736
3737 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3738
3739There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3740 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3741 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3742
3743See the ChangeLog for details.
3744
3745*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3746
3747 * New machines supported (host and target)
3748
3749IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3750
3751SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3752
3753 * New malloc package
3754
3755GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3756Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3757capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3758This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3759pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3760more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3761
3762 * info proc
3763
3764The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3765'help info proc' for details.
3766
3767 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3768
3769The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3770Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3771possible.
3772
3773 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3774
3775Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3776support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3777conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3778environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3779that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3780in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3781
3782 * Cross byte order fixes
3783
3784Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3785targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3786
3787 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3788
3789If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3790system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3791`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3792program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3793called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3794Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3795and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3796the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3797option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3798starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3799
3800You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3801the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3802information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3803slower, but makes future operations faster.
3804
3805The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3806build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3807A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3808use is:
3809
3810 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3811
3812The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3813It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3814shared across multiple host platforms.
3815
3816 * longjmp() handling
3817
3818GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3819siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3820all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3821platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3822
3823 * Solaris 2.0
3824
3825Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3826this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3827reading symbols.
3828
3829 * Bug fixes
3830
3831As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3832People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3833crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3834
3835*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3836
3837 * New machines supported (host and target)
3838
3839SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3840 (except core files)
3841BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3842Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3843
3844 * New machines supported (target)
3845
3846AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3847
3848 * C++ support
3849
3850GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3851The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3852per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3853
3854GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3855`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3856extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3857good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3858will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3859released.
3860
3861 * New features for SVR4
3862
3863GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3864shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3865only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3866
3867The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3868on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3869it prints the address mappings of the process.
3870
3871If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3872bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3873
3874 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3875
3876Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3877now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3878skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3879make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3880same code linked statically.
3881
3882 * New Getopt
3883
3884GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3885version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3886continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3887Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3888added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3889future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3890
3891 * Bugs fixed
3892
3893The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3894Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3895See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3896
3897
3898*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3899
3900 * New machines supported (host and target)
3901
3902Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3903NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3904Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3905
3906 * Almost SCO Unix support
3907
3908We had hoped to support:
3909SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3910(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3911that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3912about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3913
3914 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3915
3916GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3917debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3918is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3919send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3920reqired (if any).
3921
3922 * New Readline
3923
3924GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3925is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3926required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3927
3928 * Bugs fixed
3929
3930The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3931Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3932See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3933
3934 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3935
3936GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3937supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3938symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3939
3940Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3941mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3942debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3943mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3944version 2.
3945
3946Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3947really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3948line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3949variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3950situation somewhat.
3951
3952When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3953However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3954methods.
3955
3956We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3957DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3958encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3959
3960
3961*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3962
3963 * Improved configuration
3964
3965Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3966Porting BFD is simpler.
3967
3968 * Stepping improved
3969
3970The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3971of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3972in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3973function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3974
3975 * Bug fixing
3976
3977Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3978
3979 * New host supported (not target)
3980
3981Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3982
3983
3984*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3985
3986 * Multiple source language support
3987
3988GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3989It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3990and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3991language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3992You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3993`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3994
3995 * GDB and Modula-2
3996
3997GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3998currently under development at the State University of New York at
3999Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4000continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4001
4002Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4003debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4004symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4005
4006There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4007in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4008
4009 * set write on/off
4010
4011GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4012a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4013the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4014by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4015effect immediately.
4016
4017 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4018
4019When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4020shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4021The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4022examining core files.
4023
4024 * set listsize
4025
4026You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4027The default is 10.
4028
4029 * New machines supported (host and target)
4030
4031SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4032Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4033Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4034
4035 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4036
4037IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4038
4039 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4040
4041AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4042AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4043Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4044
4045 * New remote interfaces
4046
4047AMD 29000 Adapt
4048AMD 29000 Minimon
4049
4050
4051*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4052
4053 * New Facilities
4054
4055Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4056
4057Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4058target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4059is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4060remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4061remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4062also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4063using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4064stub on the target system.
4065
4066New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4067
4068GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4069library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4070object file types such as a.out and coff.
4071
4072There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4073refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4074
4075
4076 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4077
4078All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4079by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4080
4081For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4082``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4083Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4084
4085What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4086print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4087will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4088all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4089
4090confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4091 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4092 it is already running. Default is ON.
4093
4094editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4095 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4096 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4097 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4098 Default is ON.
4099
4100history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4101 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4102 or the value of the environment variable
4103 GDBHISTFILE.
4104
4105history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4106 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4107 HISTSIZE.
4108
4109history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4110 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4111 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4112
4113history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4114 history expansion will be performed on
4115 command line input. The default is OFF.
4116
4117radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4118 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4119 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4120
4121height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4122 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4123 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4124 variable TERM.
4125
4126width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4127 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4128 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4129 variable TERM.
4130
4131Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4132``set width'' instead.
4133
4134print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4135 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4136 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4137 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4138
4139print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4140 is OFF.
4141
4142print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4143 "raw" form if off.
4144
4145print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4146 like instructions.
4147
4148print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4149
4150
4151 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4152
4153The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4154new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4155are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4156window.
4157
4158
4159 * Support for Shared Libraries
4160
4161GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4162Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4163before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4164happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4165At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4166from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4167shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4168It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4169
4170sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4171 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4172 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4173
4174info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4175
4176
4177 * Watchpoints
4178
4179A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4180expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4181tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4182quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4183problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4184more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4185
4186watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4187
4188info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4189
4190delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4191disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4192enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4193
4194
4195 * C++ multiple inheritance
4196
4197When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4198for C++ programs.
4199
4200 * C++ exception handling
4201
4202Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4203ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4204the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4205handler's context).
4206
4207catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4208 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4209 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4210
4211info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4212 current stack frame.
4213
4214
4215 * Minor command changes
4216
4217The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4218command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4219is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4220
4221The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4222at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4223frames without printing.
4224
4225 * New directory command
4226
4227'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4228The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4229about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4230with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4231find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4232
4233 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4234
4235For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4236for more details.
4237
4238GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4239two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4240Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4241where the program that you are debugging will run.
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