2004-05-17 H.J. Lu <hongjiu.lu@intel.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
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6* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
7
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8* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
9
10Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
11wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
12
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13* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
14
15The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
16permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
17systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
18
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19* New native configurations
20
8f2d3ea0 21OpenBSD/m68k m68k-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 22OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 23NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 24OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 25
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26* REMOVED configurations and files
27
28Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
29Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
30Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
31Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
32Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
33AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
34Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
35decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
36riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
37sonymips mips-sony-*
38sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
39
faae5abe 40*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 41
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42* Removed --with-mmalloc
43
44Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
45conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
46
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47* Changes in AMD64 configurations
48
49The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
50the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
51and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
52you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
53
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54* Revised SPARC target
55
56The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
57FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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58support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
59from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
60(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 61
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62* New C++ demangler
63
64GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
65names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
66with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
67programs.
68
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69* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
70
71GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
72arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
73encountered these.
74
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75* C++ nested types and namespaces
76
77GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
78improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
79is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
80Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
81namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
82"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
83frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
84if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
85GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
86
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87* New native configurations
88
89NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 90OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 91OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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92OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
93OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 94
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95* New debugging protocols
96
97M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
98
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99* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
100
101The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
102and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
103tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
104
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105* OBSOLETE configurations and files
106
107Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
108been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
109configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
110permanently REMOVED.
111
112Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
113Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
114Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
115Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
116Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
117AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
118Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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119decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
120riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
121sonymips mips-sony-*
122sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 123
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124* REMOVED configurations and files
125
126SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
127SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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128Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
129Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
130H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
131HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
132HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
133HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
134PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 135386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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136Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
137 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
138 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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139SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
140SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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141Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
142Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 143
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144*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
145
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146* Objective-C
147
148Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
149integrated into GDB.
150
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151* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
152
153DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
154information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
155By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
156backtraces.
157
158The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
159have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
160DWARF 2 CFI support.
161
162* Hosted file I/O.
163
164GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
165file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
166remote protocol documentation for details.
167
168* All targets using the new architecture framework.
169
170All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
171architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
172to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
173ppc32 on ppc64).
174
175* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
176
177GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
178per-thread variables.
179
180* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
181
182GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
183GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
184
185* Separate debug info.
186
187GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
188automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
189of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
190system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
191and optional debug files.
192
193* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
194
195DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
196describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
197debugger.
198
199GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
200for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
201
202* Java
203
204A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
205Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
206considered "useable".
207
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208* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
209
210The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
211commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
212kernel.
213
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214* GDB supports logging output to a file
215
216There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
217used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 218
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219* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
220
221The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
222disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
223command.
224
e286caf2 225* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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226
227The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
228registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
229
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230* Profiling support
231
232A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
233be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
234session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
235"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
236data, for more informative profiling results.
237
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238* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
239
240The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
241option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 242"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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243
244Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
245removed.
246
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247Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
248Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
249Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
250 in a subsequent -var-update.
251
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252* New native configurations.
253
254FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
255
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256* Multi-arched targets.
257
b4263afa 258HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 259Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 260
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261* OBSOLETE configurations and files
262
263Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
264been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
265configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
266permanently REMOVED.
267
8b0e5691 268Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 269Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 270H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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271HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
272HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
273HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 274PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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275Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
276 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
277 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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278Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
279Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 280
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281* REMOVED configurations and files
282
283V850EA ISA
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284Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
285IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
286i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
287i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
288i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
289HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
290 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
291 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
292Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
293Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
294Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
295OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
296I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 297
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298* MIPS $fp behavior changed
299
300The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
301the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
302context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
303address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
304The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
305
299ffc64 306*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 307
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308* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
309
310When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
311`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
312in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
313library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
314shared libs like mad''.
315
b9d14705 316* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 317
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318Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
319the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
320arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
321powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 322
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323* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
324
325GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
326and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
327they expand.
328
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329The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
330invocations in expression, and shows the result.
331
332The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
333macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
334
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335Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
336information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
337your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
338information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
339
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340* Multi-arched targets.
341
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342DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
343DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 344NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 345National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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346Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
347Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 348
cd9bfe15 349* New targets.
e33ce519 350
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351Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
352
e33ce519 353
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354* New native configurations
355
356Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 357SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 358MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 359UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 360
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361* OBSOLETE configurations and files
362
363Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
364been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
365configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
366permanently REMOVED.
367
92eb23c5 368Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 369OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 370IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 371Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 372Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 373Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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374i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
375i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
376i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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377HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
378 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
379 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 380I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 381
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382* OBSOLETE languages
383
384CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
385
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386* REMOVED configurations and files
387
388AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
389A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
390AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
391AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
392AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
393
394testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
395
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396* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
397
398This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
399commands. The default is 1024.
400
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401* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
402
403Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
404
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405* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
406
407These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
408to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
409from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 410
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411* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
412
413The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
414including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
415of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
416
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417*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
418
419* New targets.
420
421Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
422
423* Bug fixes
424
425gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
426mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
427Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
428
429gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
430dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
431Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
432
433Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
434Surprisingly enough, it works now.
435By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
436
437i386 hardware watchpoint support:
438avoid misses on second run for some targets.
439By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
440
37057839 441*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 442
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443* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
444
445This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
446really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
447In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
448target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
449This can be a significant performance improvement on some
450(notably embedded) targets.
451
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452* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
453
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454This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
455process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
456GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
457hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 458
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459* New command line option
460
461GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
462
463* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
464
465There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
466command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
467a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
468be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
469open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
470issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
471a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
472it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
473GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
474is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
475
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476* Changes in ARM configurations.
477
478Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
479configuration is fully multi-arch.
480
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481* New native configurations
482
fe419ffc 483ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 484x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 485AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 486Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 487
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488* New targets
489
490Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
491
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492* OBSOLETE configurations and files
493
494Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
495been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
496configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
497permanently REMOVED.
498
499AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
500A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
501AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
502AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
503AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
504
b4ceaee6 505testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 506
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507* REMOVED configurations and files
508
509TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 510WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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511PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
512PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
513PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 514Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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515Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
516 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 517SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 518Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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519Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
520ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 521Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 522
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523* Changes to command line processing
524
525The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
526for the inferior from gdb's command line.
527
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528* Changes to key bindings
529
530There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
531
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532*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
533
534Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
535
536Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
537corrupted.
538
539Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
540
541Numerous documentation fixes.
542
543Numerous testsuite fixes.
544
34f47bc4 545*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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546
547* New native configurations
548
549Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
550x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 551MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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552MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
553ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 554s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 555
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556* New targets
557
def90278 558Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 559CRIS cris-axis
55241689 560UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 561
17e78a56 562* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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563
564x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 565Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
566Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
567 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
568TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
569WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 570Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
571PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
572PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
573PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 574SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
575Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
576ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 577Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 578
17e78a56
AC
579stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
580kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
581
7fcca85b
AC
582Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
583been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
584configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
585permanently REMOVED.
586
a196c81c 587* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
588
589Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
590Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
591Pyramid pyramid-*-*
592ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
593Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 594ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 595
6d6b80e5 596* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 597
6d6b80e5 598GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
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599sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
600present.
601
bf64bfd6
AC
602* Other news:
603
e23194cb
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604* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
605
606* The MI enabled by default.
607
608The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
609revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
610engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
611using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
612which is now deprecated.
613
614* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
615
616GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
617main features are supported:
618
619 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
620
621 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
622 extension;
623
624 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
625
626 - a Pascal expression parser.
627
628However, some important features are not yet supported.
629
630 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
631
632 - there are some problems with boolean types;
633
634 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
635 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
636
637 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
638
639 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
640
641* Changes in completion.
642
643Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
644to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
645users expect at the shell prompt.
646
647Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
648`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
649program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
650files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
651be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
652considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
653name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
654
655`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
656
657* New platform-independent commands:
658
659It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
660hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
661documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
662
663* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
664
d7275149
MK
665Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
666revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
667many threads as your system allows you to have.
668
e23194cb
EZ
669Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
670
d7275149
MK
671Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
672multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
673
674* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
675
676Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
677
e23194cb
EZ
678GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
679debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
680supported.)
681
682* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
683
684Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
685breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
686implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
687put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
688and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
689registers.
690
691The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
692debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
693watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
694
695* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
696
697New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
698the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
699
700New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
701display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
702IDT.
703
704New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
705from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
706New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
707a given linear address.
708
709GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
710program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
711which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
712
713DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
714
6c56c069
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715It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
716
e23194cb
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717* Changes in documentation.
718
719All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
720Documentation License.
721
722Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
723manual.
724
725TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
726
727Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
728manual.
729
730The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
731documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
732hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
733
5d6640b1
AC
734* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
735
736The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
737``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
738contents of this file.
739
1a1d8446
AC
740* gdba.el deleted
741
742GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 743
9debab2f 744*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 745
c63ce875
EZ
746* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
747
748Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
749programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
750displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
751greater level of detail.
752
753* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
754
755It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
756bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
757on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
758written.
759
760* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
761
762The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
763necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
764machines ``out of the box''.
765
766The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
767possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
768signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
769would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
770interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
771
772It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
773standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
774even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
775and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
776terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
777
778The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
779enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
780also works.
781
782DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
783GDB.
784
785It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
786directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
787times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
788breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
789
ed9a39eb
JM
790* New native configurations
791
792ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 793PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 794
7a292a7a
SS
795* New targets
796
96baa820 797Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
798x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
799PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
800TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
801
085dd6e6
JM
802* OBSOLETE configurations
803
804Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
805Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 806Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 807ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 808Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 809
9debab2f
AC
810Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
811but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
812these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
813be permanently REMOVED.
814
5330533d
SS
815* Gould support removed
816
817Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
818
bc9e5bbf
AC
819* New features for SVR4
820
821On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
822without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
823load symbols from the running process's executable file.
824
825* Many C++ enhancements
826
827C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
828in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
829
adf40b2e
JM
830* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
831
832A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
833sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
834with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
835``|<program> <args>'' vis:
836
837 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
838 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
839
43e526b9
JM
840* MIPS 64 remote protocol
841
842A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
843expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
844instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
845
846The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
847added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
848
96baa820
JM
849* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
850
851The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
852``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
853include ``set remote P-packet''.
854
11cf8741
JM
855* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
856
857The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
858accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
859``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
860
7876dd43
DB
861* ``apropos'' command added.
862
863The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
864documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
865try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
866
bc9e5bbf
AC
867* New MI interface
868
869A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
870interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
871process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
872"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
873enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
874
875 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
876
c906108c
SS
877*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
878
879* New native configurations
880
881HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
882HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 883M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
884
885* New targets
886
887Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
888Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
889Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
890
891* OBSOLETE configurations
892
893Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
894
895Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
896but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
897these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
898be permanently REMOVED.
899
900* ANSI/ISO C
901
902As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
903buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
904containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
905use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
906available. If this is not true, please report the affected
907configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
908information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
909already.
910
911* Readline 2.2
912
913GDB now uses readline 2.2.
914
915* set extension-language
916
917You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
918languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
919you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
920 set extension-language .c c++
921The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
922and their associated languages.
923
924* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
925
926When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
927you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
928PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
929
930 set processor NAME
931
932sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
933following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
934
935 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
936 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
937 403 IBM PowerPC 403
938 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
939 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
940 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
941 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
942 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
943 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
944 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
945 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
946
947At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
948special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
949registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
950only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
951
952* HP-UX support
953
954Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
955more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
956library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
957support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
958for xdb and dbx commands.
959
960* Catchpoints
961
962HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
963generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
964to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
965
966This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
967argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
968output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
969
970* Debugging across forks
971
972On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
973in the inferior.
974
975* TUI
976
977HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
978it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
979configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
980
981* GDB remote protocol additions
982
983A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
984Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
985fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
986allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
987
988For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
989full 64-bit address. The command
990
991 set remoteaddresssize 32
992
993can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
994the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
995will be discarded.
996
997In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
998command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
999
1000 maint packet heythere
1001
1002sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1003disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1004time.
1005
1006The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1007target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1008downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1009
1010* Tracing can collect general expressions
1011
1012You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1013further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1014doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1015
1016* mask-address variable for Mips
1017
1018For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1019a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1020of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1021
1022* Higher serial baud rates
1023
1024GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1025230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1026to achieve all of these rates.)
1027
1028* i960 simulator
1029
1030The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1031builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1032
1033
1034*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1035
1036* New native configurations
1037
1038Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1039Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1040Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1041PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1042PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1043Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1044Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1045
1046* New targets
1047
1048Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1049Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1050Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1051Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1052MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1053MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1054MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1055Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1056Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1057Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1058NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1059
1060* New debugging protocols
1061
1062ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1063M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1064DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1065PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1066PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1067Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1068
1069* DWARF 2
1070
1071All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1072format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1073information.
1074
1075* Java frontend
1076
1077GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1078only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1079
1080* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1081
1082For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1083loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1084locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1085
1086* Live range splitting
1087
1088GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1089range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1090more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1091
1092* Hurd support
1093
1094GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1095updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1096
1097* ARM Thumb support
1098
1099GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1100instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1101instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1102accordingly.
1103
1104* MIPS16 support
1105
1106GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1107instruction set.
1108
1109* Overlay support
1110
1111GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1112linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1113will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1114control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1115additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1116in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1117
1118* info symbol
1119
1120The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1121the symbol at the specified address.
1122
1123* Trace support
1124
1125The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1126asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1127extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1128includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1129file tracepoint.c for more details.
1130
1131* MIPS simulator
1132
1133Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1134by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1135of most MIPS variants.
1136
1137* Sparc simulator
1138
1139Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1140by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1141Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1142
1143* set architecture
1144
1145For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1146basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1147architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1148the possible architectures.
1149
1150*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1151
1152* New native configurations
1153
1154Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1155M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1156PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1157PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1158PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1159RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1160
1161* New targets
1162
1163ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1164I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1165MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1166MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1167PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1168Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1169Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1170
1171* PowerPC simulator
1172
1173The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1174contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1175PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1176basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1177performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1178
1179* Solaris 2.5
1180
1181GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1182
1183* Windows 95/NT native
1184
1185GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1186To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1187which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1188Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1189ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1190
1191* dont-repeat command
1192
1193If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1194command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1195useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1196extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1197
1198* Send break instead of ^C
1199
1200The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1201rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1202GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1203
1204* Remote protocol timeout
1205
1206The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1207that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1208to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1209
1210* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1211
1212By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1213loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1214stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1215when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1216in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1217
1218Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1219/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1220automatically on hpux10.
1221
1222* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1223
1224Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1225
1226* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1227
1228When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1229may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1230the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1231every character. The default value is 1050.
1232
1233* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1234
1235If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1236a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1237replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1238details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1239remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1240to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1241
1242* Speedups for remote debugging
1243
1244GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1245the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1246and more efficient S-record downloading.
1247
1248* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1249
1250GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1251Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1252
1253*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1254
1255* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1256
1257The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1258can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1259
1260* Remote targets use caching
1261
1262Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1263remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1264it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1265debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1266off' turns the the data cache off.
1267
1268* Remote targets may have threads
1269
1270The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1271in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1272gdb/remote.c for details.
1273
1274* NetROM support
1275
1276If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1277support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1278acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1279write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1280support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1281another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1282sequence is something like
1283
1284 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1285 load <prog>
1286 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1287
1288* Macintosh host
1289
1290GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1291may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1292it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1293available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1294device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1295directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1296scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1297mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1298
1299* Autoconf
1300
1301GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1302but does simplify configuration and building.
1303
1304* hpux10
1305
1306GDB now supports hpux10.
1307
1308*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1309
1310* New native configurations
1311
1312x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1313x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1314NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1315Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1316
1317* New targets
1318
1319A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1320HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1321CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1322PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1323WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1324
1325* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1326
1327GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1328possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1329filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1330the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1331if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1332
1333* Arguments to user-defined commands
1334
1335User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1336Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1337trivial example:
1338define adder
1339 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1340
1341To execute the command use:
1342adder 1 2 3
1343
1344Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1345Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1346use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1347
1348* New `if' and `while' commands
1349
1350This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1351commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1352expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1353execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1354terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1355`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1356if the expression is zero.
1357
1358* Fortran source language mode
1359
1360GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1361Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1362variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1363with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1364Fortran compilers.
1365
1366* Better HPUX support
1367
1368Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1369running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1370processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1371for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1372that behavior do the following before running the program:
1373
1374 adb -w a.out
1375 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1376 control-d
1377
1378This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1379To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1380
1381 adb -w a.out
1382 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1383 control-d
1384
1385You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1386the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1387external linkage.
1388
1389GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1390HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1391
1392* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1393
1394You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1395commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1396current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1397"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1398associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1399configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1400
1401* New DOS host serial code
1402
1403This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1404no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1405a PC's serial port.
1406
1407*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1408
1409* New "complete" command
1410
1411This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1412were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1413
1414* Trailing space optional in prompt
1415
1416"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1417allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1418
1419* Breakpoint hit counts
1420
1421"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1422has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1423can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1424to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1425less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1426that breakpoint.
1427
1428* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1429
1430"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1431an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1432arrays actually contain only short strings.
1433
1434* Shared library breakpoints
1435
1436In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1437breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1438
1439* Hardware watchpoints
1440
1441There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1442targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1443
55241689 1444Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1445
1446* Annotations
1447
1448Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1449and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1450
1451* Improved Irix 5 support
1452
1453GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1454
1455* Improved HPPA support
1456
1457GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1458
1459* New native configurations
1460
1461Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1462HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1463Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1464RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1465
1466* New targets
1467
1468OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1469MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1470Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1471
1472* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1473
1474There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1475This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1476
1477* Fixes
1478
1479As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1480and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1481
1482*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1483
1484* Irix 5 is now supported
1485
1486* HPPA support
1487
1488GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1489to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1490GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1491of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1492can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1493
1494
1495*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1496
1497* User visible changes:
1498
1499* Remote Debugging
1500
1501The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1502target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1503debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1504integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1505debugging info for the mips target).
1506
1507* DEC Alpha native support
1508
1509GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1510debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1511work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1512Alpha-specific notes.
1513
1514* Preliminary thread implementation
1515
1516GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1517
1518* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1519
1520This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1521to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1522for details).
1523
1524* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1525
1526This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1527mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1528call methods, ...etc.
1529
1530*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1531
1532 * User visible changes:
1533
1534Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1535supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1536other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1537somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1538
1539Filename completion now works.
1540
1541When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1542arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1543addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1544
1545All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1546vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1547should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1548your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1549to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1550
1551 * DEC alpha support
1552
1553This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1554cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1555
1556
1557*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1558
1559 * Testsuite
1560
1561This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1562The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1563via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1564
1565 * C++ demangling
1566
1567'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1568emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1569Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1570disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1571use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1572
1573 * Simulators
1574
1575GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1576So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1577Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1578
1579 * New targets supported
1580
1581H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1582H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1583SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1584Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1585IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1586
1587Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1588version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1589GO32 memory extender.
1590
1591 * New remote protocols
1592
1593MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1594
1595 * New source languages supported
1596
1597This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1598used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1599into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1600
1601
1602*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1603
1604 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1605
1606GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1607version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1608University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1609compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1610format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1611(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1612
1613Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1614
1615 * Faster and better demangling
1616
1617We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1618demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1619character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1620only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1621This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1622increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1623symbol lookups.
1624
1625`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1626from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1627compiler does not actually implement.
1628
1629 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1630
1631In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1632inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1633recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1634very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1635The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1636circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1637fix.
1638
1639The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1640release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1641
1642 * Improved configure script
1643
1644The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1645you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1646host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1647done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1648
1649We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1650version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1651`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1652The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1653only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1654We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1655
1656 * Documentation improvements
1657
1658There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1659produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1660before submitting changes.
1661
1662The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1663M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1664`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1665you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1666a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1667
1668*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1669We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1670been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1671or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1672`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1673around this problem.
1674
1675 * New features
1676
1677GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1678the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1679`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1680the target program.
1681
1682The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1683how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1684
1685 * New native hosts supported
1686
1687HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1688386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1689
1690 * New targets supported
1691
1692AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1693
1694 * New file formats supported
1695
1696BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1697HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1698
1699 * Major bug fixes
1700
1701Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1702
1703We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1704printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1705
1706We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1707for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1708release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1709
1710You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1711will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1712
1713We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1714for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1715especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1716libraries.
1717
1718The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1719information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1720command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1721any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1722when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1723
1724 * Internal improvements
1725
1726GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1727debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1728
1729GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1730Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1731symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1732contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1733shared code that handles any of them.
1734
1735 * New command line options
1736
1737We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1738
1739 * Mmalloc licensing
1740
1741The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1742General Public License.
1743
1744*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1745
1746 * Host/native/target split
1747
1748GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1749hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1750target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1751local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1752ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1753
1754The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1755GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1756is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1757code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1758any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1759built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1760handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1761
1762GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1763It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1764plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1765
1766 * New hosts supported
1767
1768HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1769386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1770386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1771
1772 * New targets supported
1773
1774Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
177568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1776
1777 * New native hosts supported
1778
1779386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1780 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1781386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1782
1783 * New file formats supported
1784
1785BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1786supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1787format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1788
1789 * New commands
1790
1791`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1792`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1793These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1794
1795`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1796
1797You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1798scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1799prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1800executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1801
1802 * C++ improvements
1803
1804We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1805info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1806symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1807
1808Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1809
1810 * Major bug fixes
1811
1812The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1813fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1814by the compiler.
1815
1816We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1817support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1818
1819John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1820slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1821that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1822purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1823the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1824mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1825
1826Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1827about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1828completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1829we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1830
1831 * AMD 29k support
1832
1833A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1834specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1835calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1836usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1837in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1838
1839We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1840Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1841of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1842resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1843
1844 * Remote interfaces
1845
1846We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1847with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1848message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1849This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1850needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1851breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1852each instruction being stepped through.
1853
1854The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1855registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1856
1857There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1858find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1859Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1860processor with a serial port.
1861
1862 * Configuration
1863
1864Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1865`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1866supported, and what files each one uses.
1867
1868 * Library changes
1869
1870There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1871disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1872Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1873disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1874
1875The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1876Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1877can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1878grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1879
1880 * Documentation
1881
1882The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1883reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1884as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1885encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1886system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1887bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1888
1889And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1890
1891
1892*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1893
1894 * Better support for C++ function names
1895
1896GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1897names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1898(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1899single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1900Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1901
1902GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1903the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1904You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1905lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1906for the list of formats.
1907
1908 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1909
1910Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1911C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1912directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1913can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1914usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1915about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1916this problem.)
1917
1918 * New 'maintenance' command
1919
1920All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1921the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1922can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1923
1924 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1925 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1926 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1927 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1928 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1929 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1930
1931The following commands are new:
1932
1933 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1934 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1935 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1936
1937 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1938
1939We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1940(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1941be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1942read after argv processing.
1943
1944 * New hosts supported
1945
1946Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1947
55241689 1948GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1949
1950We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1951is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1952for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1953masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1954fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1955It costs extra.
1956
1957 * New targets supported
1958
1959Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1960
1961 * More smarts about finding #include files
1962
1963GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1964all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1965greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1966especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1967the one that contains your sources.
1968
1969We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1970breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1971try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1972
1973 * Interesting infernals change
1974
1975GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1976section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1977target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1978stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1979
1980 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1981
1982There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1983 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1984 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1985
1986See the ChangeLog for details.
1987
1988*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1989
1990 * New machines supported (host and target)
1991
1992IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1993
1994SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1995
1996 * New malloc package
1997
1998GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1999Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2000capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2001This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2002pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2003more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2004
2005 * info proc
2006
2007The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2008'help info proc' for details.
2009
2010 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2011
2012The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2013Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2014possible.
2015
2016 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2017
2018Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2019support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2020conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2021environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2022that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2023in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2024
2025 * Cross byte order fixes
2026
2027Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2028targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2029
2030 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2031
2032If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2033system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2034`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2035program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2036called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2037Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2038and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2039the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2040option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2041starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2042
2043You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2044the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2045information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2046slower, but makes future operations faster.
2047
2048The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2049build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2050A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2051use is:
2052
2053 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2054
2055The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2056It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2057shared across multiple host platforms.
2058
2059 * longjmp() handling
2060
2061GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2062siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2063all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2064platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2065
2066 * Solaris 2.0
2067
2068Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2069this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2070reading symbols.
2071
2072 * Bug fixes
2073
2074As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2075People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2076crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2077
2078*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2079
2080 * New machines supported (host and target)
2081
2082SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2083 (except core files)
2084BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2085Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2086
2087 * New machines supported (target)
2088
2089AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2090
2091 * C++ support
2092
2093GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2094The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2095per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2096
2097GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2098`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2099extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2100good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2101will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2102released.
2103
2104 * New features for SVR4
2105
2106GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2107shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2108only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2109
2110The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2111on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2112it prints the address mappings of the process.
2113
2114If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2115bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2116
2117 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2118
2119Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2120now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2121skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2122make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2123same code linked statically.
2124
2125 * New Getopt
2126
2127GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2128version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2129continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2130Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2131added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2132future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2133
2134 * Bugs fixed
2135
2136The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2137Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2138See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2139
2140
2141*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2142
2143 * New machines supported (host and target)
2144
2145Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2146NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2147Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2148
2149 * Almost SCO Unix support
2150
2151We had hoped to support:
2152SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2153(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2154that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2155about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2156
2157 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2158
2159GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2160debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2161is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2162send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2163reqired (if any).
2164
2165 * New Readline
2166
2167GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2168is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2169required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2170
2171 * Bugs fixed
2172
2173The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2174Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2175See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2176
2177 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2178
2179GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2180supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2181symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2182
2183Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2184mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2185debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2186mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2187version 2.
2188
2189Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2190really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2191line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2192variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2193situation somewhat.
2194
2195When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2196However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2197methods.
2198
2199We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2200DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2201encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2202
2203
2204*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2205
2206 * Improved configuration
2207
2208Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2209Porting BFD is simpler.
2210
2211 * Stepping improved
2212
2213The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2214of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2215in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2216function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2217
2218 * Bug fixing
2219
2220Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2221
2222 * New host supported (not target)
2223
2224Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2225
2226
2227*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2228
2229 * Multiple source language support
2230
2231GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2232It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2233and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2234language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2235You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2236`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2237
2238 * GDB and Modula-2
2239
2240GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2241currently under development at the State University of New York at
2242Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2243continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2244
2245Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2246debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2247symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2248
2249There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2250in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2251
2252 * set write on/off
2253
2254GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2255a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2256the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2257by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2258effect immediately.
2259
2260 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2261
2262When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2263shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2264The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2265examining core files.
2266
2267 * set listsize
2268
2269You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2270The default is 10.
2271
2272 * New machines supported (host and target)
2273
2274SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2275Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2276Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2277
2278 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2279
2280IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2281
2282 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2283
2284AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2285AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2286Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2287
2288 * New remote interfaces
2289
2290AMD 29000 Adapt
2291AMD 29000 Minimon
2292
2293
2294*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2295
2296 * New Facilities
2297
2298Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2299
2300Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2301target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2302is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2303remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2304remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2305also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2306using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2307stub on the target system.
2308
2309New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2310
2311GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2312library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2313object file types such as a.out and coff.
2314
2315There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2316refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2317
2318
2319 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2320
2321All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2322by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2323
2324For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2325``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2326Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2327
2328What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2329print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2330will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2331all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2332
2333confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2334 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2335 it is already running. Default is ON.
2336
2337editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2338 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2339 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2340 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2341 Default is ON.
2342
2343history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2344 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2345 or the value of the environment variable
2346 GDBHISTFILE.
2347
2348history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2349 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2350 HISTSIZE.
2351
2352history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2353 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2354 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2355
2356history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2357 history expansion will be performed on
2358 command line input. The default is OFF.
2359
2360radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2361 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2362 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2363
2364height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2365 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2366 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2367 variable TERM.
2368
2369width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2370 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2371 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2372 variable TERM.
2373
2374Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2375``set width'' instead.
2376
2377print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2378 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2379 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2380 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2381
2382print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2383 is OFF.
2384
2385print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2386 "raw" form if off.
2387
2388print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2389 like instructions.
2390
2391print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2392
2393
2394 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2395
2396The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2397new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2398are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2399window.
2400
2401
2402 * Support for Shared Libraries
2403
2404GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2405Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2406before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2407happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2408At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2409from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2410shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2411It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2412
2413sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2414 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2415 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2416
2417info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2418
2419
2420 * Watchpoints
2421
2422A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2423expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2424tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2425quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2426problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2427more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2428
2429watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2430
2431info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2432
2433delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2434disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2435enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2436
2437
2438 * C++ multiple inheritance
2439
2440When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2441for C++ programs.
2442
2443 * C++ exception handling
2444
2445Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2446ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2447the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2448handler's context).
2449
2450catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2451 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2452 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2453
2454info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2455 current stack frame.
2456
2457
2458 * Minor command changes
2459
2460The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2461command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2462is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2463
2464The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2465at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2466frames without printing.
2467
2468 * New directory command
2469
2470'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2471The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2472about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2473with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2474find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2475
2476 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2477
2478For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2479for more details.
2480
2481GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2482two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2483Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2484where the program that you are debugging will run.
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