gdb/
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
75feb17d
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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6* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
7now complete on file names.
8
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9* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
10completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
11For instance, consider:
12
13 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
14 # struct example variable;
15 (gdb) p variable.
16
17If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
18completions will be "f1" and "f2".
19
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20* New remote packets
21
22qSearch:memory:
23 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
24
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25* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
26
27 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
28 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
29 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
30
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31* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
32source+assembly.
33
c055b101 34* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 35DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
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36
37* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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38and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
39`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 40
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41* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
42with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
43
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44* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
45
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46* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
47which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
48
1fddbabb 49* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 50list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 51
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52* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
53conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
54have also been fixed.
55
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56* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
57
58 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
59 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
60
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61 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
62 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
63 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
64
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65* New commands
66
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67find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
68 val1 [, val2, ...]
69 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
70
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71set debug timetstamp
72show debug timestamp
73 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
74
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75set exec-wrapper
76show exec-wrapper
77unset exec-wrapper
78 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 79
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80set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
81show multiple-symbols
82 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
83 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
84 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
85
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86set breakpoint always-inserted
87show breakpoint always-inserted
88 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
89 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
90 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
91
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92set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
93show arm fallback-mode
94set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
95show arm force-mode
96 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
97 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
98 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
99 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
100
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101set disable-randomization
102show disable-randomization
103 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
104 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
105 multiple debugging sessions.
106
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107* New targets
108
109x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
110
75feb17d 111*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 112
af5ca30d
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113* New native configurations
114
115NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 116Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
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117
118* New targets
119
120NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 121Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 122
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123* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
124
125 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
126 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
127 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
128 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
129
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130* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
131(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
132
fe6fbf8b 133* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 134is resolved.
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135
136* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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137including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
138and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 139
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140* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
141accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
142more than one contiguous range of addresses.
143
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144* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
145
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146* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
147registers on PowerPC targets.
148
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149* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
150targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
151
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152* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
153commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
154
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155* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
156extended-remote mode.
157
24a836bd 158* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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159The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
160error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
161The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 162
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163* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
164building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
165target architectures.
166
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167* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
168Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
169now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
170stored in two consecutive float registers.
171
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172* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
173breakpoints now.
174
b93b6ca7 175* Improved support for debugging Ada
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176Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
177include:
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178 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
179 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
180 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
181 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
182 of an assignment
183 - Improved command completion in Ada
184 - Several bug fixes
185
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186* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
187process.
188
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189* New commands
190
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191set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
192show print frame-arguments
193 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
194 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
195
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196remote put
197remote get
198remote delete
199 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
200
201* New MI commands
202
203-target-file-put
204-target-file-get
205-target-file-delete
206 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
207
208* New remote packets
209
210vFile:open:
211vFile:close:
212vFile:pread:
213vFile:pwrite:
214vFile:unlink:
215 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 216
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217vAttach
218 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
219 mode.
220
221vRun
222 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
223
8d5f9c6f 224*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 225
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226* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
227bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
228Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
229
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UW
230* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
231symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
232-Bsymbolic linker option.
233
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234* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
235recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
236is not supported.
237
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238* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
239frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
240
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241* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
24232-bit or 64-bit register values.
243
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244* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
245
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246* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
247target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
248a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
249
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250* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
251automatically displayed as character or string data.
252
253* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
254arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
255as strings.
e1f48ead 256
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257* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
258for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 259only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 260
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261* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
262iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 263
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264* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
265ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
266has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
267
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268* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
269
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UW
270* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
271
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272* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
273layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
274segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
275
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276* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
277immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
278
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279* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
280"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
281packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
282where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
283Windows and SymbianOS).
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284
285* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
286(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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287
288* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
289according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 290
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291* New commands
292
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293set remoteflow
294show remoteflow
295 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
296 when debugging using remote targets.
297
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298set mem inaccessible-by-default
299show mem inaccessible-by-default
300 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
301 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
302 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
303 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
304 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
305
306set breakpoint auto-hw
307show breakpoint auto-hw
308 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
309 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
310 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
311 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
312 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
313 including "next" and "finish".
314
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315catch exception
316catch exception unhandled
317 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
318
319catch assert
320 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
321
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322set sysroot
323show sysroot
324 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
325 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
326 an alias to "set sysroot".
327
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UW
328info spu
329 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
330 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
331 architecture.
332
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333* New native configurations
334
335OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
336
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337set tdesc filename
338unset tdesc filename
339show tdesc filename
340 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
341 not query the target for its built-in description.
342
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343* New targets
344
54fe9172 345OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 346MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 347Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 348
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349* New remote packets
350
351QPassSignals:
352 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
353 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
354
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355qXfer:features:read:
356 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
357 features.
6dd09645 358
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359qXfer:spu:read:
360qXfer:spu:write:
361 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
362 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
363
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364qXfer:libraries:read:
365 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
366 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
367 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
368 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
369
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370* Removed targets
371
372Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
373
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374alpha*-*-osf1*
375alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 376d10v-*-*
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377hppa*-*-hiux*
378i[34567]86-ncr-*
379i[34567]86-*-dgux*
380i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
381i[34567]86-*-netware*
382i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
383i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
384i[34567]86-*-sco*
385i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
386i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
387i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
388i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
389i[34567]86-*-unixware*
390i[34567]86-*-sysv*
391i[34567]86-*-isc*
392m68*-cisco*-*
393m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 394mips*-*-pe
483367ee 395rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 396sh*-*-pe
483367ee 397
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398* Other removed features
399
400target abug
401target cpu32bug
402target est
403target rom68k
404
405 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
406
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407target hms
408target e7000
409target sh3
410target sh3e
411
412 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
413 H8/300.
414
415target ocd
416
417 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
418 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
419 interfaces.
420
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421DWARF 1 support
422
423 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
424 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
425
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DJ
426Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
427
428 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
429 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
430 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
431 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
432
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433MIPS ".pdr" sections
434
435 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
436 in debugging information.
437
438Scheme support
439
440 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
441 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
442
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443set mips stack-arg-size
444set mips saved-gpreg-size
445
446 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
447
6dd09645 448*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 449
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450* New targets
451
452Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 453Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 454
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455* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
456(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
457running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
458
459* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
460Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
461supported.
462
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463* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
464broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
465
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466* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
467stub provides the required support.
468
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469* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
470longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
471
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472* New commands
473
474set substitute-path
475unset substitute-path
476show substitute-path
477 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
478 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
479 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
480 between compilation and debugging.
481
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482set trace-commands
483show trace-commands
484 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
485 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
486 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
487
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488* REMOVED features
489
490The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
491
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492Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
493an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
494
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495The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
496
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497* New remote packets
498
499qSupported:
500 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
501 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
502 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
503 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
504 target.
505
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506qXfer:auxv:read:
507 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
508 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
509
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510qXfer:memory-map:read:
511 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
512 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
513
514vFlashErase:
515vFlashWrite:
516vFlashDone:
517 Erase and program a flash memory device.
518
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519* Removed remote packets
520
521qPart:auxv:read:
522 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
523 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
524
e374b601 525*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 526
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527* New targets
528
529Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
530
531Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
532
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533* New commands
534
535init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
536 only if it doesn't already have a value.
537
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538The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
539
540checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
541
542restart <n> Return the program state to a
543 previously saved state.
544
545info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
546
547delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
548
549set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
550 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
551
552info forks List forks of the user program that
553 are available to be debugged.
554
555fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
556 forks of the user program that are
557 available to be debugged.
558
559delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
560 that are available to be debugged (and
561 kill the forked process).
562
563detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
564 that are available to be debugged (and
565 allow the process to continue).
566
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567* New architecture
568
569Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
570
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571* Improved Windows host support
572
573GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
574native console support, and remote communications using either
575network sockets or serial ports.
576
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577* Improved Modula-2 language support
578
579GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
580basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
581pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
582printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
583written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
584GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
585
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586* REMOVED features
587
588The ARM rdi-share module.
589
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590The Netware NLM debug server.
591
53e5f3cf 592*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 593
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594* New native configurations
595
02a677ac 596OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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597OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
598
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599* New targets
600
601Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
602
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603* New command line options
604
605--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
606--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
607 the child (debugged) program exited with.
608--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
609 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
610 specified multiple times and in conjunction
611 with the --command (-x) option.
612
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613* Deprecated commands removed
614
615The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
616removed:
617
618 Command Replacement
619 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
620 othernames set arm disassembler
621 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
622 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
623 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
624 regs info registers
625
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626* New BSD user-level threads support
627
628It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
629library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
630configurations are:
631
632FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
633FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
634OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
635
636Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
637are not yet supported.
638
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639* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
640(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
641
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642* REMOVED configurations and files
643
644VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 645Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 646National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 647
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648* New "set print array-indexes" command
649
650After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
651when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
652behavior.
653
e85e5c83
MK
654* VAX floating point support
655
656GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
657
d91e9901
AS
658* User-defined command support
659
660In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
661to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
662section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
663
f2cb65ca
MC
664*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
665
f47b1503
AS
666* New command line option
667
668GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
669debugging.
670
f2cb65ca
MC
671* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
672
673GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
674information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
675by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
676proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
677to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 678
d08c0230
AC
679* Internationalization
680
681When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
682internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
683continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
684
117ea3cf
PH
685* Ada
686
687Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
688implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
689into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
690
d08c0230
AC
691* New native configurations
692
693GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
694
695* Remote 'p' packet
696
697GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
698packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
699
700* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
701
702GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
703The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
704features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
705i386 application).
706
707GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
708compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
709continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
710configurations:
711
712hppa-*-hpux
713ia64-*-aix
714mips-*-irix*
715*-*-lynx
716mips-*-linux-gnu
717sds protocol
718xdr protocol
719powerpc bdm protocol
720
721Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
722made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
723
724* OBSOLETE configurations and files
725
726Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
727been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
728configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
729permanently REMOVED.
730
731h8300-*-*
732mcore-*-*
733mn10300-*-*
734ns32k-*-*
735sh64-*-*
736v850-*-*
737
ebb7c577
AC
738*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
739
740* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
741
742When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
743heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
744been fixed.
745
746* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
747
748When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
749fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
750IRIX long double values).
751
752* VAX and "next"
753
754A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
755command. This problem has been fixed.
756
860660cb 757*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 758
0dea2468
AC
759* Fix for ``many threads''
760
761On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
762rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
763error message:
764
765 ptrace: No such process.
766 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
767
768This problem has been fixed.
769
2c07db7a
AC
770* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
771
772Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
773GDB to dump core).
774
c23968a2
JB
775* New ``start'' command.
776
777This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
778
71009278
MK
779* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
780
781Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
782live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
783platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
784
785FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
786FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
787NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
788NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
789NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
790OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
791OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
792OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
793OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
794
3c0b7db2
AC
795* Signal trampoline code overhauled
796
797Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
798These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
799of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
800call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
801signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
802
73cc75f3
AC
803Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
804features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
805include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 806
7243600a
BF
807* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
808
6f606e1c
MK
809* New native configurations
810
97dc871c 811GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 812OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
813OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
814OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 815OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 816NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 817OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 818
a1b461bf
AC
819* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
820
821GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
822The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
823including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
824migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
825compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
826work, was also included.
827
828GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
829module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
830
831h8300-*-*
832mcore-*-*
833mn10300-*-*
834ns32k-*-*
835sh64-*-*
836v850-*-*
837xstormy16-*-*
838
839Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
840made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
841
3c7012f5
AC
842* REMOVED configurations and files
843
844Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
845Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
846Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
847Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
848Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
849AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
850Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
851decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
852riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
853sonymips mips-sony-*
854sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
855
e5fe55f7
AC
856*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
857
858* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
859
860The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
861GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
862command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
863program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
864with GDB".
865
866* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
867
868Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
869libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
870cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
871GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
872shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
873the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
874are created.
875
876Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
877
878* Fixed ISO-C build problems
879
880The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
881non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
882compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
883
884* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
885
886Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
887wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
888
889* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
890
891The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
892permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
893systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
894
895* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
896
897Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
898has been updated to use constant array sizes.
899
900* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
901
902GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
903its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
904panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
905
906* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
907
908When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
909by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
910not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
911
faae5abe 912*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 913
9175c9a3
MC
914* Removed --with-mmalloc
915
916Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
917conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
918
3cc87ec0
MK
919* Changes in AMD64 configurations
920
921The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
922the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
923and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
924you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
925
f0424ef6
MK
926* Revised SPARC target
927
928The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
929FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
930support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
931from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
932(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 933
59659be2
ILT
934* New C++ demangler
935
936GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
937names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
938with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
939programs.
940
9e08b29b
DJ
941* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
942
943GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
944arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
945encountered these.
946
8dfe8985
DC
947* C++ nested types and namespaces
948
949GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
950improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
951is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
952Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
953namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
954"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
955frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
956if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
957GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
958
cced5e27
MK
959* New native configurations
960
961NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 962OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 963OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
964OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
965OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 966
b4b4b794
KI
967* New debugging protocols
968
969M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
970
7989c619
AC
971* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
972
973The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
974and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
975tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
976
5994185b
AC
977* OBSOLETE configurations and files
978
979Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
980been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
981configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
982permanently REMOVED.
983
984Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
985Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
986Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
987Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
988Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
989AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
990Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
991decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
992riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
993sonymips mips-sony-*
994sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 995
0ddabb4c
AC
996* REMOVED configurations and files
997
998SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
999SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1000Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1001Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1002H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1003HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1004HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1005HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1006PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1007386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1008Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1009 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1010 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1011SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1012SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1013Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1014Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1015
c7f1390e
DJ
1016*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1017
1fe43d45
AC
1018* Objective-C
1019
1020Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1021integrated into GDB.
1022
e6beb428
AC
1023* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1024
1025DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1026information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1027By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1028backtraces.
1029
1030The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1031have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1032DWARF 2 CFI support.
1033
1034* Hosted file I/O.
1035
1036GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1037file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1038remote protocol documentation for details.
1039
1040* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1041
1042All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1043architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1044to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1045ppc32 on ppc64).
1046
1047* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1048
1049GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1050per-thread variables.
1051
1052* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1053
1054GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1055GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1056
1057* Separate debug info.
1058
1059GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1060automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1061of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1062system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1063and optional debug files.
1064
1065* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1066
1067DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1068describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1069debugger.
1070
1071GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1072for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1073
1074* Java
1075
1076A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1077Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1078considered "useable".
1079
85f8f974
DJ
1080* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1081
1082The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1083commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1084kernel.
1085
0fac0b41
DJ
1086* GDB supports logging output to a file
1087
1088There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1089used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1090
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1091* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1092
1093The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1094disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1095command.
1096
e286caf2 1097* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1098
1099The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1100registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1101
d28f9cdf
DJ
1102* Profiling support
1103
1104A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1105be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1106session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1107"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1108data, for more informative profiling results.
1109
da0f9dcd
AC
1110* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1111
1112The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1113option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1114"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1115
1116Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1117removed.
1118
fb9b6b35
JJ
1119Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1120Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1121Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1122 in a subsequent -var-update.
1123
954a4db8
MK
1124* New native configurations.
1125
1126FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1127
6760f9e6
JB
1128* Multi-arched targets.
1129
b4263afa 1130HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1131Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1132
1b831c93
AC
1133* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1134
1135Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1136been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1137configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1138permanently REMOVED.
1139
8b0e5691 1140Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1141Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1142H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1143HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1144HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1145HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1146PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1147Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1148 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1149 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1150Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1151Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1152
5835abe7
NC
1153* REMOVED configurations and files
1154
1155V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1156Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1157IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1158i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1159i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1160i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1161HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1162 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1163 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1164Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1165Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1166Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1167OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1168I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1169
a094c6fb
AC
1170* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1171
1172The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1173the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1174context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1175address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1176The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1177
299ffc64 1178*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1179
46248966
AC
1180* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1181
1182When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1183`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1184in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1185library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1186shared libs like mad''.
1187
b9d14705 1188* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1189
b9d14705
DJ
1190Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1191the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1192arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1193powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1194
e0e9281e
JB
1195* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1196
1197GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1198and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1199they expand.
1200
dd73b9bb
AC
1201The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1202invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1203
1204The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1205macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1206
e0e9281e
JB
1207Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1208information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1209your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1210information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1211
2250ee0c
CV
1212* Multi-arched targets.
1213
6e3ba3b8
JT
1214DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1215DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1216NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1217National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1218Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1219Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1220
cd9bfe15 1221* New targets.
e33ce519 1222
456f8b9d
DB
1223Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1224
e33ce519 1225
da8ca43d
JT
1226* New native configurations
1227
1228Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1229SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1230MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1231UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1232
cd9bfe15
AC
1233* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1234
1235Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1236been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1237configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1238permanently REMOVED.
1239
92eb23c5 1240Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1241OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1242IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1243Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1244Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1245Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1246i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1247i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1248i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1249HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1250 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1251 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1252I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1253
db034ac5
AC
1254* OBSOLETE languages
1255
1256CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1257
cd9bfe15
AC
1258* REMOVED configurations and files
1259
1260AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1261A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1262AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1263AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1264AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1265
1266testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1267
20f01a46
DH
1268* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1269
1270This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1271commands. The default is 1024.
1272
a5941fbf
MK
1273* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1274
1275Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1276
89743e04
MS
1277* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1278
1279These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1280to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1281from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1282
9fb14e79
JB
1283* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1284
1285The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1286including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1287of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1288
2037aebb
AC
1289*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1290
1291* New targets.
1292
1293Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1294
1295* Bug fixes
1296
1297gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1298mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1299Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1300
1301gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1302dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1303Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1304
1305Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1306Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1307By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1308
1309i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1310avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1311By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1312
37057839 1313*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1314
1a703748
MS
1315* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1316
1317This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1318really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1319In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1320target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1321This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1322(notably embedded) targets.
1323
cefd4ef5
MS
1324* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1325
55241689
AC
1326This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1327process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1328GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1329hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1330
352ed7b4
MS
1331* New command line option
1332
1333GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1334
1335* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1336
1337There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1338command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1339a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1340be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1341open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1342issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1343a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1344it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1345GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1346is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1347
fe419ffc
RE
1348* Changes in ARM configurations.
1349
1350Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1351configuration is fully multi-arch.
1352
eb7cedd9
MK
1353* New native configurations
1354
fe419ffc 1355ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1356x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1357AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1358Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1359
c9f63e6b
CV
1360* New targets
1361
1362Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1363
9b4ff276
AC
1364* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1365
1366Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1367been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1368configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1369permanently REMOVED.
1370
1371AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1372A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1373AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1374AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1375AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1376
b4ceaee6 1377testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1378
e2caac18
AC
1379* REMOVED configurations and files
1380
1381TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1382WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1383PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1384PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1385PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1386Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1387Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1388 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1389SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1390Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1391Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1392ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1393Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1394
c2a727fa
TT
1395* Changes to command line processing
1396
1397The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1398for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1399
467d8519
TT
1400* Changes to key bindings
1401
1402There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1403
7072a954
AC
1404*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1405
1406Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1407
1408Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1409corrupted.
1410
1411Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1412
1413Numerous documentation fixes.
1414
1415Numerous testsuite fixes.
1416
34f47bc4 1417*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1418
1419* New native configurations
1420
1421Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1422x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1423MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1424MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1425ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1426s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1427
bf64bfd6
AC
1428* New targets
1429
def90278 1430Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1431CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1432UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1433
17e78a56 1434* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1435
1436x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1437Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1438Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1439 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1440TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1441WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1442Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1443PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1444PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1445PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1446SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1447Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1448ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1449Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1450
17e78a56
AC
1451stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1452kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1453
7fcca85b
AC
1454Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1455been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1456configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1457permanently REMOVED.
1458
a196c81c 1459* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1460
1461Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1462Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1463Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1464ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1465Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1466ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1467
6d6b80e5 1468* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1469
6d6b80e5 1470GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1471sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1472present.
1473
bf64bfd6
AC
1474* Other news:
1475
e23194cb
EZ
1476* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1477
1478* The MI enabled by default.
1479
1480The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1481revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1482engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1483using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1484which is now deprecated.
1485
1486* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1487
1488GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1489main features are supported:
1490
1491 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1492
1493 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1494 extension;
1495
1496 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1497
1498 - a Pascal expression parser.
1499
1500However, some important features are not yet supported.
1501
1502 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1503
1504 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1505
1506 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1507 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1508
1509 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1510
1511 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1512
1513* Changes in completion.
1514
1515Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1516to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1517users expect at the shell prompt.
1518
1519Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1520`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1521program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1522files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1523be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1524considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1525name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1526
1527`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1528
1529* New platform-independent commands:
1530
1531It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1532hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1533documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1534
1535* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1536
d7275149
MK
1537Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1538revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1539many threads as your system allows you to have.
1540
e23194cb
EZ
1541Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1542
d7275149
MK
1543Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1544multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1545
1546* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1547
1548Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1549
e23194cb
EZ
1550GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1551debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1552supported.)
1553
1554* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1555
1556Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1557breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1558implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1559put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1560and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1561registers.
1562
1563The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1564debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1565watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1566
1567* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1568
1569New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1570the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1571
1572New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1573display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1574IDT.
1575
1576New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1577from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1578New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1579a given linear address.
1580
1581GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1582program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1583which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1584
1585DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1586
6c56c069
EZ
1587It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1588
e23194cb
EZ
1589* Changes in documentation.
1590
1591All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1592Documentation License.
1593
1594Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1595manual.
1596
1597TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1598
1599Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1600manual.
1601
1602The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1603documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1604hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1605
5d6640b1
AC
1606* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1607
1608The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1609``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1610contents of this file.
1611
1a1d8446
AC
1612* gdba.el deleted
1613
1614GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1615
9debab2f 1616*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1617
c63ce875
EZ
1618* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1619
1620Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1621programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1622displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1623greater level of detail.
1624
1625* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1626
1627It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1628bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1629on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1630written.
1631
1632* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1633
1634The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1635necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1636machines ``out of the box''.
1637
1638The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1639possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1640signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1641would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1642interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1643
1644It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1645standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1646even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1647and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1648terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1649
1650The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1651enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1652also works.
1653
1654DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1655GDB.
1656
1657It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1658directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1659times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1660breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1661
ed9a39eb
JM
1662* New native configurations
1663
1664ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1665PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1666
7a292a7a
SS
1667* New targets
1668
96baa820 1669Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1670x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1671PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1672TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1673
085dd6e6
JM
1674* OBSOLETE configurations
1675
1676Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1677Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1678Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1679ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1680Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1681
9debab2f
AC
1682Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1683but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1684these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1685be permanently REMOVED.
1686
5330533d
SS
1687* Gould support removed
1688
1689Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1690
bc9e5bbf
AC
1691* New features for SVR4
1692
1693On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1694without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1695load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1696
1697* Many C++ enhancements
1698
1699C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1700in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1701
adf40b2e
JM
1702* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1703
1704A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1705sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1706with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1707``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1708
1709 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1710 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1711
43e526b9
JM
1712* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1713
1714A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1715expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1716instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1717
1718The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1719added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1720
96baa820
JM
1721* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1722
1723The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1724``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1725include ``set remote P-packet''.
1726
11cf8741
JM
1727* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1728
1729The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1730accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1731``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1732
7876dd43
DB
1733* ``apropos'' command added.
1734
1735The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1736documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1737try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1738
bc9e5bbf
AC
1739* New MI interface
1740
1741A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1742interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1743process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1744"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1745enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1746
1747 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1748
c906108c
SS
1749*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1750
1751* New native configurations
1752
1753HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1754HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1755M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1756
1757* New targets
1758
1759Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1760Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1761Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1762
1763* OBSOLETE configurations
1764
1765Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1766
1767Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1768but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1769these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1770be permanently REMOVED.
1771
1772* ANSI/ISO C
1773
1774As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1775buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1776containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1777use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1778available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1779configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1780information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1781already.
1782
1783* Readline 2.2
1784
1785GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1786
1787* set extension-language
1788
1789You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1790languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1791you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1792 set extension-language .c c++
1793The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1794and their associated languages.
1795
1796* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1797
1798When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1799you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1800PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1801
1802 set processor NAME
1803
1804sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1805following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1806
1807 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1808 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1809 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1810 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1811 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1812 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1813 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1814 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1815 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1816 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1817 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1818
1819At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1820special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1821registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1822only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1823
1824* HP-UX support
1825
1826Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1827more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1828library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1829support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1830for xdb and dbx commands.
1831
1832* Catchpoints
1833
1834HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1835generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1836to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1837
1838This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1839argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1840output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1841
1842* Debugging across forks
1843
1844On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1845in the inferior.
1846
1847* TUI
1848
1849HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1850it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1851configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1852
1853* GDB remote protocol additions
1854
1855A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1856Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1857fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1858allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1859
1860For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1861full 64-bit address. The command
1862
1863 set remoteaddresssize 32
1864
1865can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1866the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1867will be discarded.
1868
1869In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1870command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1871
1872 maint packet heythere
1873
1874sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1875disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1876time.
1877
1878The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1879target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1880downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1881
1882* Tracing can collect general expressions
1883
1884You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1885further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1886doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1887
1888* mask-address variable for Mips
1889
1890For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1891a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1892of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1893
1894* Higher serial baud rates
1895
1896GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1897230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1898to achieve all of these rates.)
1899
1900* i960 simulator
1901
1902The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1903builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1904
1905
1906*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1907
1908* New native configurations
1909
1910Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1911Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1912Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1913PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1914PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1915Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1916Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1917
1918* New targets
1919
1920Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1921Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1922Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1923Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1924MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1925MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1926MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1927Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1928Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1929Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1930NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1931
1932* New debugging protocols
1933
1934ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1935M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1936DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1937PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1938PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1939Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1940
1941* DWARF 2
1942
1943All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1944format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1945information.
1946
1947* Java frontend
1948
1949GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1950only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1951
1952* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1953
1954For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1955loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1956locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1957
1958* Live range splitting
1959
1960GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1961range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1962more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1963
1964* Hurd support
1965
1966GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1967updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1968
1969* ARM Thumb support
1970
1971GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1972instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1973instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1974accordingly.
1975
1976* MIPS16 support
1977
1978GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1979instruction set.
1980
1981* Overlay support
1982
1983GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1984linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1985will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1986control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1987additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1988in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1989
1990* info symbol
1991
1992The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1993the symbol at the specified address.
1994
1995* Trace support
1996
1997The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1998asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1999extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2000includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2001file tracepoint.c for more details.
2002
2003* MIPS simulator
2004
2005Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2006by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2007of most MIPS variants.
2008
2009* Sparc simulator
2010
2011Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2012by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2013Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2014
2015* set architecture
2016
2017For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2018basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2019architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2020the possible architectures.
2021
2022*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2023
2024* New native configurations
2025
2026Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2027M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2028PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2029PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2030PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2031RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2032
2033* New targets
2034
2035ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2036I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2037MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2038MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2039PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2040Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2041Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2042
2043* PowerPC simulator
2044
2045The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2046contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2047PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2048basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2049performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2050
2051* Solaris 2.5
2052
2053GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2054
2055* Windows 95/NT native
2056
2057GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2058To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2059which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2060Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2061ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2062
2063* dont-repeat command
2064
2065If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2066command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2067useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2068extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2069
2070* Send break instead of ^C
2071
2072The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2073rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2074GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2075
2076* Remote protocol timeout
2077
2078The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2079that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2080to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2081
2082* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2083
2084By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2085loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2086stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2087when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2088in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2089
2090Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2091/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2092automatically on hpux10.
2093
2094* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2095
2096Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2097
2098* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2099
2100When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2101may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2102the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2103every character. The default value is 1050.
2104
2105* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2106
2107If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2108a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2109replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2110details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2111remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2112to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2113
2114* Speedups for remote debugging
2115
2116GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2117the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2118and more efficient S-record downloading.
2119
2120* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2121
2122GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2123Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2124
2125*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2126
2127* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2128
2129The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2130can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2131
2132* Remote targets use caching
2133
2134Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2135remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2136it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2137debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2138off' turns the the data cache off.
2139
2140* Remote targets may have threads
2141
2142The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2143in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2144gdb/remote.c for details.
2145
2146* NetROM support
2147
2148If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2149support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2150acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2151write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2152support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2153another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2154sequence is something like
2155
2156 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2157 load <prog>
2158 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2159
2160* Macintosh host
2161
2162GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2163may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2164it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2165available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2166device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2167directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2168scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2169mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2170
2171* Autoconf
2172
2173GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2174but does simplify configuration and building.
2175
2176* hpux10
2177
2178GDB now supports hpux10.
2179
2180*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2181
2182* New native configurations
2183
2184x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2185x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2186NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2187Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2188
2189* New targets
2190
2191A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2192HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2193CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2194PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2195WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2196
2197* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2198
2199GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2200possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2201filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2202the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2203if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2204
2205* Arguments to user-defined commands
2206
2207User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2208Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2209trivial example:
2210define adder
2211 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2212
2213To execute the command use:
2214adder 1 2 3
2215
2216Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2217Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2218use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2219
2220* New `if' and `while' commands
2221
2222This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2223commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2224expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2225execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2226terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2227`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2228if the expression is zero.
2229
2230* Fortran source language mode
2231
2232GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2233Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2234variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2235with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2236Fortran compilers.
2237
2238* Better HPUX support
2239
2240Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2241running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2242processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2243for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2244that behavior do the following before running the program:
2245
2246 adb -w a.out
2247 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2248 control-d
2249
2250This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2251To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2252
2253 adb -w a.out
2254 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2255 control-d
2256
2257You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2258the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2259external linkage.
2260
2261GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2262HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2263
2264* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2265
2266You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2267commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2268current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2269"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2270associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2271configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2272
2273* New DOS host serial code
2274
2275This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2276no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2277a PC's serial port.
2278
2279*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2280
2281* New "complete" command
2282
2283This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2284were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2285
2286* Trailing space optional in prompt
2287
2288"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2289allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2290
2291* Breakpoint hit counts
2292
2293"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2294has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2295can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2296to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2297less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2298that breakpoint.
2299
2300* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2301
2302"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2303an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2304arrays actually contain only short strings.
2305
2306* Shared library breakpoints
2307
2308In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2309breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2310
2311* Hardware watchpoints
2312
2313There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2314targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2315
55241689 2316Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2317
2318* Annotations
2319
2320Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2321and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2322
2323* Improved Irix 5 support
2324
2325GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2326
2327* Improved HPPA support
2328
2329GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2330
2331* New native configurations
2332
2333Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2334HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2335Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2336RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2337
2338* New targets
2339
2340OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2341MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2342Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2343
2344* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2345
2346There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2347This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2348
2349* Fixes
2350
2351As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2352and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2353
2354*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2355
2356* Irix 5 is now supported
2357
2358* HPPA support
2359
2360GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2361to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2362GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2363of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2364can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2365
2366
2367*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2368
2369* User visible changes:
2370
2371* Remote Debugging
2372
2373The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2374target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2375debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2376integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2377debugging info for the mips target).
2378
2379* DEC Alpha native support
2380
2381GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2382debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2383work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2384Alpha-specific notes.
2385
2386* Preliminary thread implementation
2387
2388GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2389
2390* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2391
2392This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2393to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2394for details).
2395
2396* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2397
2398This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2399mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2400call methods, ...etc.
2401
2402*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2403
2404 * User visible changes:
2405
2406Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2407supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2408other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2409somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2410
2411Filename completion now works.
2412
2413When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2414arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2415addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2416
2417All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2418vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2419should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2420your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2421to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2422
2423 * DEC alpha support
2424
2425This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2426cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2427
2428
2429*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2430
2431 * Testsuite
2432
2433This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2434The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2435via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2436
2437 * C++ demangling
2438
2439'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2440emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2441Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2442disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2443use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2444
2445 * Simulators
2446
2447GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2448So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2449Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2450
2451 * New targets supported
2452
2453H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2454H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2455SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2456Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2457IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2458
2459Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2460version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2461GO32 memory extender.
2462
2463 * New remote protocols
2464
2465MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2466
2467 * New source languages supported
2468
2469This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2470used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2471into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2472
2473
2474*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2475
2476 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2477
2478GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2479version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2480University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2481compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2482format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2483(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2484
2485Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2486
2487 * Faster and better demangling
2488
2489We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2490demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2491character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2492only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2493This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2494increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2495symbol lookups.
2496
2497`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2498from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2499compiler does not actually implement.
2500
2501 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2502
2503In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2504inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2505recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2506very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2507The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2508circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2509fix.
2510
2511The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2512release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2513
2514 * Improved configure script
2515
2516The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2517you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2518host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2519done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2520
2521We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2522version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2523`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2524The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2525only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2526We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2527
2528 * Documentation improvements
2529
2530There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2531produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2532before submitting changes.
2533
2534The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2535M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2536`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2537you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2538a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2539
2540*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2541We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2542been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2543or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2544`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2545around this problem.
2546
2547 * New features
2548
2549GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2550the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2551`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2552the target program.
2553
2554The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2555how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2556
2557 * New native hosts supported
2558
2559HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2560386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2561
2562 * New targets supported
2563
2564AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2565
2566 * New file formats supported
2567
2568BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2569HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2570
2571 * Major bug fixes
2572
2573Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2574
2575We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2576printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2577
2578We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2579for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2580release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2581
2582You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2583will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2584
2585We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2586for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2587especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2588libraries.
2589
2590The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2591information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2592command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2593any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2594when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2595
2596 * Internal improvements
2597
2598GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2599debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2600
2601GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2602Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2603symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2604contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2605shared code that handles any of them.
2606
2607 * New command line options
2608
2609We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2610
2611 * Mmalloc licensing
2612
2613The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2614General Public License.
2615
2616*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2617
2618 * Host/native/target split
2619
2620GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2621hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2622target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2623local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2624ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2625
2626The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2627GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2628is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2629code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2630any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2631built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2632handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2633
2634GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2635It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2636plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2637
2638 * New hosts supported
2639
2640HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2641386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2642386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2643
2644 * New targets supported
2645
2646Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
264768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2648
2649 * New native hosts supported
2650
2651386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2652 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2653386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2654
2655 * New file formats supported
2656
2657BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2658supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2659format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2660
2661 * New commands
2662
2663`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2664`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2665These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2666
2667`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2668
2669You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2670scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2671prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2672executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2673
2674 * C++ improvements
2675
2676We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2677info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2678symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2679
2680Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2681
2682 * Major bug fixes
2683
2684The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2685fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2686by the compiler.
2687
2688We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2689support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2690
2691John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2692slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2693that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2694purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2695the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2696mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2697
2698Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2699about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2700completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2701we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2702
2703 * AMD 29k support
2704
2705A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2706specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2707calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2708usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2709in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2710
2711We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2712Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2713of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2714resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2715
2716 * Remote interfaces
2717
2718We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2719with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2720message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2721This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2722needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2723breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2724each instruction being stepped through.
2725
2726The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2727registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2728
2729There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2730find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2731Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2732processor with a serial port.
2733
2734 * Configuration
2735
2736Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2737`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2738supported, and what files each one uses.
2739
2740 * Library changes
2741
2742There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2743disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2744Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2745disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2746
2747The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2748Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2749can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2750grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2751
2752 * Documentation
2753
2754The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2755reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2756as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2757encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2758system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2759bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2760
2761And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2762
2763
2764*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2765
2766 * Better support for C++ function names
2767
2768GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2769names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2770(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2771single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2772Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2773
2774GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2775the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2776You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2777lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2778for the list of formats.
2779
2780 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2781
2782Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2783C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2784directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2785can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2786usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2787about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2788this problem.)
2789
2790 * New 'maintenance' command
2791
2792All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2793the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2794can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2795
2796 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2797 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2798 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2799 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2800 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2801 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2802
2803The following commands are new:
2804
2805 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2806 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2807 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2808
2809 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2810
2811We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2812(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2813be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2814read after argv processing.
2815
2816 * New hosts supported
2817
2818Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2819
55241689 2820GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2821
2822We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2823is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2824for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2825masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2826fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2827It costs extra.
2828
2829 * New targets supported
2830
2831Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2832
2833 * More smarts about finding #include files
2834
2835GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2836all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2837greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2838especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2839the one that contains your sources.
2840
2841We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2842breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2843try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2844
2845 * Interesting infernals change
2846
2847GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2848section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2849target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2850stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2851
2852 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2853
2854There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2855 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2856 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2857
2858See the ChangeLog for details.
2859
2860*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2861
2862 * New machines supported (host and target)
2863
2864IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2865
2866SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2867
2868 * New malloc package
2869
2870GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2871Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2872capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2873This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2874pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2875more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2876
2877 * info proc
2878
2879The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2880'help info proc' for details.
2881
2882 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2883
2884The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2885Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2886possible.
2887
2888 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2889
2890Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2891support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2892conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2893environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2894that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2895in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2896
2897 * Cross byte order fixes
2898
2899Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2900targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2901
2902 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2903
2904If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2905system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2906`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2907program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2908called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2909Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2910and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2911the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2912option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2913starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2914
2915You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2916the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2917information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2918slower, but makes future operations faster.
2919
2920The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2921build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2922A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2923use is:
2924
2925 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2926
2927The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2928It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2929shared across multiple host platforms.
2930
2931 * longjmp() handling
2932
2933GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2934siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2935all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2936platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2937
2938 * Solaris 2.0
2939
2940Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2941this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2942reading symbols.
2943
2944 * Bug fixes
2945
2946As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2947People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2948crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2949
2950*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2951
2952 * New machines supported (host and target)
2953
2954SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2955 (except core files)
2956BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2957Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2958
2959 * New machines supported (target)
2960
2961AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2962
2963 * C++ support
2964
2965GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2966The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2967per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2968
2969GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2970`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2971extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2972good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2973will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2974released.
2975
2976 * New features for SVR4
2977
2978GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2979shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2980only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2981
2982The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2983on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2984it prints the address mappings of the process.
2985
2986If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2987bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2988
2989 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2990
2991Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2992now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2993skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2994make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2995same code linked statically.
2996
2997 * New Getopt
2998
2999GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3000version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3001continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3002Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3003added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3004future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3005
3006 * Bugs fixed
3007
3008The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3009Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3010See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3011
3012
3013*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3014
3015 * New machines supported (host and target)
3016
3017Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3018NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3019Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3020
3021 * Almost SCO Unix support
3022
3023We had hoped to support:
3024SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3025(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3026that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3027about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3028
3029 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3030
3031GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3032debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3033is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3034send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3035reqired (if any).
3036
3037 * New Readline
3038
3039GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3040is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3041required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3042
3043 * Bugs fixed
3044
3045The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3046Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3047See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3048
3049 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3050
3051GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3052supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3053symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3054
3055Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3056mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3057debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3058mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3059version 2.
3060
3061Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3062really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3063line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3064variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3065situation somewhat.
3066
3067When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3068However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3069methods.
3070
3071We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3072DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3073encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3074
3075
3076*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3077
3078 * Improved configuration
3079
3080Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3081Porting BFD is simpler.
3082
3083 * Stepping improved
3084
3085The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3086of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3087in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3088function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3089
3090 * Bug fixing
3091
3092Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3093
3094 * New host supported (not target)
3095
3096Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3097
3098
3099*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3100
3101 * Multiple source language support
3102
3103GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3104It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3105and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3106language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3107You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3108`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3109
3110 * GDB and Modula-2
3111
3112GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3113currently under development at the State University of New York at
3114Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3115continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3116
3117Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3118debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3119symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3120
3121There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3122in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3123
3124 * set write on/off
3125
3126GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3127a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3128the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3129by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3130effect immediately.
3131
3132 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3133
3134When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3135shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3136The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3137examining core files.
3138
3139 * set listsize
3140
3141You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3142The default is 10.
3143
3144 * New machines supported (host and target)
3145
3146SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3147Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3148Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3149
3150 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3151
3152IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3153
3154 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3155
3156AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3157AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3158Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3159
3160 * New remote interfaces
3161
3162AMD 29000 Adapt
3163AMD 29000 Minimon
3164
3165
3166*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3167
3168 * New Facilities
3169
3170Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3171
3172Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3173target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3174is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3175remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3176remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3177also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3178using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3179stub on the target system.
3180
3181New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3182
3183GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3184library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3185object file types such as a.out and coff.
3186
3187There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3188refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3189
3190
3191 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3192
3193All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3194by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3195
3196For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3197``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3198Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3199
3200What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3201print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3202will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3203all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3204
3205confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3206 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3207 it is already running. Default is ON.
3208
3209editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3210 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3211 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3212 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3213 Default is ON.
3214
3215history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3216 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3217 or the value of the environment variable
3218 GDBHISTFILE.
3219
3220history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3221 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3222 HISTSIZE.
3223
3224history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3225 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3226 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3227
3228history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3229 history expansion will be performed on
3230 command line input. The default is OFF.
3231
3232radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3233 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3234 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3235
3236height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3237 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3238 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3239 variable TERM.
3240
3241width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3242 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3243 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3244 variable TERM.
3245
3246Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3247``set width'' instead.
3248
3249print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3250 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3251 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3252 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3253
3254print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3255 is OFF.
3256
3257print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3258 "raw" form if off.
3259
3260print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3261 like instructions.
3262
3263print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3264
3265
3266 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3267
3268The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3269new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3270are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3271window.
3272
3273
3274 * Support for Shared Libraries
3275
3276GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3277Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3278before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3279happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3280At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3281from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3282shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3283It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3284
3285sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3286 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3287 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3288
3289info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3290
3291
3292 * Watchpoints
3293
3294A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3295expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3296tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3297quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3298problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3299more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3300
3301watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3302
3303info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3304
3305delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3306disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3307enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3308
3309
3310 * C++ multiple inheritance
3311
3312When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3313for C++ programs.
3314
3315 * C++ exception handling
3316
3317Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3318ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3319the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3320handler's context).
3321
3322catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3323 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3324 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3325
3326info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3327 current stack frame.
3328
3329
3330 * Minor command changes
3331
3332The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3333command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3334is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3335
3336The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3337at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3338frames without printing.
3339
3340 * New directory command
3341
3342'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3343The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3344about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3345with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3346find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3347
3348 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3349
3350For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3351for more details.
3352
3353GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3354two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3355Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3356where the program that you are debugging will run.
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