2003-08-18 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
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6* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
7
8The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
9and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
10tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
11
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12*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
13
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14* GDB supports logging output to a file
15
16There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
17used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 18
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19* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
20
21The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
22disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
23command.
24
e286caf2 25* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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26
27The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
28registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
29
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30* Profiling support
31
32A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
33be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
34session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
35"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
36data, for more informative profiling results.
37
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38* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
39
40The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
41option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 42"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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43
44Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
45removed.
46
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47Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
48Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
49Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
50 in a subsequent -var-update.
51
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52* Multi-arched targets.
53
b4263afa 54HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
880bc914 55Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 56
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57* OBSOLETE configurations and files
58
59Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
60been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
61configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
62permanently REMOVED.
63
8b0e5691 64Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 65Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 66H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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67HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
68HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
69HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 70PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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71Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
72 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
73 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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74Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
75Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 76
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77* REMOVED configurations and files
78
79V850EA ISA
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80Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
81IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
82i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
83i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
84i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
85HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
86 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
87 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
88Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
89Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
90Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
91OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
92I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 93
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94* MIPS $fp behavior changed
95
96The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
97the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
98context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
99address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
100The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
101
299ffc64 102*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 103
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104* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
105
106When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
107`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
108in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
109library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
110shared libs like mad''.
111
b9d14705 112* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 113
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114Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
115the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
116arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
117powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 118
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119* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
120
121GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
122and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
123they expand.
124
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125The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
126invocations in expression, and shows the result.
127
128The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
129macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
130
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131Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
132information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
133your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
134information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
135
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136* Multi-arched targets.
137
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138DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
139DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 140NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 141National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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142Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
143Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 144
cd9bfe15 145* New targets.
e33ce519 146
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147Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
148
e33ce519 149
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150* New native configurations
151
152Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 153SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 154MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 155UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 156
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157* OBSOLETE configurations and files
158
159Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
160been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
161configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
162permanently REMOVED.
163
92eb23c5 164Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 165OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 166IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 167Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 168Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 169Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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170i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
171i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
172i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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173HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
174 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
175 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 176I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 177
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178* OBSOLETE languages
179
180CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
181
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182* REMOVED configurations and files
183
184AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
185A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
186AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
187AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
188AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
189
190testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
191
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192* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
193
194This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
195commands. The default is 1024.
196
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197* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
198
199Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
200
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201* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
202
203These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
204to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
205from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 206
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207* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
208
209The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
210including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
211of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
212
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213*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
214
215* New targets.
216
217Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
218
219* Bug fixes
220
221gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
222mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
223Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
224
225gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
226dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
227Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
228
229Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
230Surprisingly enough, it works now.
231By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
232
233i386 hardware watchpoint support:
234avoid misses on second run for some targets.
235By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
236
37057839 237*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 238
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239* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
240
241This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
242really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
243In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
244target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
245This can be a significant performance improvement on some
246(notably embedded) targets.
247
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248* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
249
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250This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
251process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
252GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
253hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 254
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255* New command line option
256
257GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
258
259* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
260
261There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
262command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
263a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
264be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
265open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
266issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
267a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
268it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
269GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
270is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
271
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272* Changes in ARM configurations.
273
274Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
275configuration is fully multi-arch.
276
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277* New native configurations
278
fe419ffc 279ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 280x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 281AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 282Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 283
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284* New targets
285
286Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
287
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288* OBSOLETE configurations and files
289
290Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
291been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
292configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
293permanently REMOVED.
294
295AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
296A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
297AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
298AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
299AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
300
b4ceaee6 301testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 302
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303* REMOVED configurations and files
304
305TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 306WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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307PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
308PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
309PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 310Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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311Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
312 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 313SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 314Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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315Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
316ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 317Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 318
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319* Changes to command line processing
320
321The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
322for the inferior from gdb's command line.
323
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324* Changes to key bindings
325
326There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
327
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328*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
329
330Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
331
332Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
333corrupted.
334
335Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
336
337Numerous documentation fixes.
338
339Numerous testsuite fixes.
340
34f47bc4 341*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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342
343* New native configurations
344
345Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
346x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 347MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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348MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
349ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 350s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 351
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352* New targets
353
def90278 354Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 355CRIS cris-axis
55241689 356UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 357
17e78a56 358* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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359
360x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 361Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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362Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
363 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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364TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
365WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 366Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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367PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
368PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
369PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 370SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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371Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
372ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 373Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 374
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375stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
376kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
377
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378Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
379been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
380configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
381permanently REMOVED.
382
a196c81c 383* REMOVED configurations and files
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384
385Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
386Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
387Pyramid pyramid-*-*
388ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
389Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 390ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 391
6d6b80e5 392* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 393
6d6b80e5 394GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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395sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
396present.
397
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398* Other news:
399
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400* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
401
402* The MI enabled by default.
403
404The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
405revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
406engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
407using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
408which is now deprecated.
409
410* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
411
412GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
413main features are supported:
414
415 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
416
417 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
418 extension;
419
420 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
421
422 - a Pascal expression parser.
423
424However, some important features are not yet supported.
425
426 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
427
428 - there are some problems with boolean types;
429
430 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
431 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
432
433 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
434
435 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
436
437* Changes in completion.
438
439Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
440to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
441users expect at the shell prompt.
442
443Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
444`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
445program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
446files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
447be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
448considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
449name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
450
451`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
452
453* New platform-independent commands:
454
455It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
456hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
457documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
458
459* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
460
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461Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
462revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
463many threads as your system allows you to have.
464
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465Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
466
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467Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
468multi-threaded programs though.
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469
470* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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471
472Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
473
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474GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
475debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
476supported.)
477
478* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
479
480Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
481breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
482implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
483put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
484and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
485registers.
486
487The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
488debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
489watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
490
491* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
492
493New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
494the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
495
496New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
497display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
498IDT.
499
500New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
501from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
502New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
503a given linear address.
504
505GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
506program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
507which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
508
509DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
510
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511It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
512
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513* Changes in documentation.
514
515All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
516Documentation License.
517
518Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
519manual.
520
521TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
522
523Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
524manual.
525
526The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
527documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
528hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
529
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530* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
531
532The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
533``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
534contents of this file.
535
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536* gdba.el deleted
537
538GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 539
9debab2f 540*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 541
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542* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
543
544Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
545programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
546displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
547greater level of detail.
548
549* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
550
551It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
552bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
553on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
554written.
555
556* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
557
558The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
559necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
560machines ``out of the box''.
561
562The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
563possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
564signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
565would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
566interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
567
568It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
569standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
570even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
571and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
572terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
573
574The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
575enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
576also works.
577
578DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
579GDB.
580
581It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
582directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
583times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
584breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
585
ed9a39eb
JM
586* New native configurations
587
588ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 589PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 590
7a292a7a
SS
591* New targets
592
96baa820 593Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
594x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
595PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
596TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
597
085dd6e6
JM
598* OBSOLETE configurations
599
600Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
601Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 602Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 603ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 604Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 605
9debab2f
AC
606Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
607but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
608these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
609be permanently REMOVED.
610
5330533d
SS
611* Gould support removed
612
613Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
614
bc9e5bbf
AC
615* New features for SVR4
616
617On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
618without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
619load symbols from the running process's executable file.
620
621* Many C++ enhancements
622
623C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
624in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
625
adf40b2e
JM
626* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
627
628A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
629sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
630with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
631``|<program> <args>'' vis:
632
633 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
634 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
635
43e526b9
JM
636* MIPS 64 remote protocol
637
638A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
639expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
640instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
641
642The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
643added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
644
96baa820
JM
645* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
646
647The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
648``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
649include ``set remote P-packet''.
650
11cf8741
JM
651* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
652
653The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
654accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
655``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
656
7876dd43
DB
657* ``apropos'' command added.
658
659The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
660documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
661try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
662
bc9e5bbf
AC
663* New MI interface
664
665A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
666interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
667process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
668"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
669enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
670
671 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
672
c906108c
SS
673*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
674
675* New native configurations
676
677HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
678HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 679M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
680
681* New targets
682
683Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
684Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
685Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
686
687* OBSOLETE configurations
688
689Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
690
691Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
692but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
693these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
694be permanently REMOVED.
695
696* ANSI/ISO C
697
698As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
699buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
700containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
701use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
702available. If this is not true, please report the affected
703configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
704information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
705already.
706
707* Readline 2.2
708
709GDB now uses readline 2.2.
710
711* set extension-language
712
713You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
714languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
715you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
716 set extension-language .c c++
717The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
718and their associated languages.
719
720* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
721
722When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
723you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
724PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
725
726 set processor NAME
727
728sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
729following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
730
731 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
732 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
733 403 IBM PowerPC 403
734 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
735 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
736 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
737 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
738 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
739 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
740 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
741 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
742
743At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
744special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
745registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
746only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
747
748* HP-UX support
749
750Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
751more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
752library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
753support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
754for xdb and dbx commands.
755
756* Catchpoints
757
758HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
759generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
760to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
761
762This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
763argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
764output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
765
766* Debugging across forks
767
768On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
769in the inferior.
770
771* TUI
772
773HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
774it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
775configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
776
777* GDB remote protocol additions
778
779A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
780Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
781fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
782allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
783
784For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
785full 64-bit address. The command
786
787 set remoteaddresssize 32
788
789can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
790the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
791will be discarded.
792
793In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
794command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
795
796 maint packet heythere
797
798sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
799disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
800time.
801
802The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
803target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
804downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
805
806* Tracing can collect general expressions
807
808You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
809further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
810doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
811
812* mask-address variable for Mips
813
814For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
815a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
816of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
817
818* Higher serial baud rates
819
820GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
821230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
822to achieve all of these rates.)
823
824* i960 simulator
825
826The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
827builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
828
829
830*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
831
832* New native configurations
833
834Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
835Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
836Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
837PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
838PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
839Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
840Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
841
842* New targets
843
844Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
845Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
846Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
847Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
848MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
849MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
850MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
851Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
852Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
853Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
854NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
855
856* New debugging protocols
857
858ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
859M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
860DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
861PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
862PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
863Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
864
865* DWARF 2
866
867All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
868format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
869information.
870
871* Java frontend
872
873GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
874only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
875
876* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
877
878For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
879loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
880locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
881
882* Live range splitting
883
884GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
885range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
886more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
887
888* Hurd support
889
890GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
891updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
892
893* ARM Thumb support
894
895GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
896instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
897instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
898accordingly.
899
900* MIPS16 support
901
902GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
903instruction set.
904
905* Overlay support
906
907GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
908linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
909will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
910control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
911additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
912in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
913
914* info symbol
915
916The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
917the symbol at the specified address.
918
919* Trace support
920
921The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
922asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
923extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
924includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
925file tracepoint.c for more details.
926
927* MIPS simulator
928
929Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
930by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
931of most MIPS variants.
932
933* Sparc simulator
934
935Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
936by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
937Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
938
939* set architecture
940
941For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
942basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
943architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
944the possible architectures.
945
946*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
947
948* New native configurations
949
950Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
951M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
952PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
953PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
954PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
955RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
956
957* New targets
958
959ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
960I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
961MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
962MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
963PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
964Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
965Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
966
967* PowerPC simulator
968
969The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
970contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
971PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
972basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
973performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
974
975* Solaris 2.5
976
977GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
978
979* Windows 95/NT native
980
981GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
982To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
983which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
984Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
985ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
986
987* dont-repeat command
988
989If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
990command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
991useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
992extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
993
994* Send break instead of ^C
995
996The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
997rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
998GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
999
1000* Remote protocol timeout
1001
1002The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1003that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1004to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1005
1006* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1007
1008By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1009loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1010stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1011when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1012in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1013
1014Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1015/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1016automatically on hpux10.
1017
1018* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1019
1020Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1021
1022* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1023
1024When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1025may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1026the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1027every character. The default value is 1050.
1028
1029* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1030
1031If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1032a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1033replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1034details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1035remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1036to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1037
1038* Speedups for remote debugging
1039
1040GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1041the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1042and more efficient S-record downloading.
1043
1044* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1045
1046GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1047Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1048
1049*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1050
1051* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1052
1053The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1054can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1055
1056* Remote targets use caching
1057
1058Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1059remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1060it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1061debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1062off' turns the the data cache off.
1063
1064* Remote targets may have threads
1065
1066The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1067in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1068gdb/remote.c for details.
1069
1070* NetROM support
1071
1072If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1073support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1074acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1075write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1076support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1077another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1078sequence is something like
1079
1080 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1081 load <prog>
1082 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1083
1084* Macintosh host
1085
1086GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1087may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1088it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1089available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1090device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1091directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1092scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1093mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1094
1095* Autoconf
1096
1097GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1098but does simplify configuration and building.
1099
1100* hpux10
1101
1102GDB now supports hpux10.
1103
1104*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1105
1106* New native configurations
1107
1108x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1109x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1110NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1111Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1112
1113* New targets
1114
1115A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1116HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1117CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1118PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1119WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1120
1121* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1122
1123GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1124possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1125filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1126the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1127if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1128
1129* Arguments to user-defined commands
1130
1131User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1132Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1133trivial example:
1134define adder
1135 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1136
1137To execute the command use:
1138adder 1 2 3
1139
1140Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1141Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1142use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1143
1144* New `if' and `while' commands
1145
1146This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1147commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1148expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1149execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1150terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1151`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1152if the expression is zero.
1153
1154* Fortran source language mode
1155
1156GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1157Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1158variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1159with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1160Fortran compilers.
1161
1162* Better HPUX support
1163
1164Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1165running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1166processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1167for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1168that behavior do the following before running the program:
1169
1170 adb -w a.out
1171 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1172 control-d
1173
1174This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1175To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1176
1177 adb -w a.out
1178 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1179 control-d
1180
1181You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1182the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1183external linkage.
1184
1185GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1186HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1187
1188* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1189
1190You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1191commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1192current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1193"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1194associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1195configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1196
1197* New DOS host serial code
1198
1199This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1200no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1201a PC's serial port.
1202
1203*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1204
1205* New "complete" command
1206
1207This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1208were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1209
1210* Trailing space optional in prompt
1211
1212"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1213allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1214
1215* Breakpoint hit counts
1216
1217"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1218has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1219can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1220to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1221less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1222that breakpoint.
1223
1224* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1225
1226"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1227an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1228arrays actually contain only short strings.
1229
1230* Shared library breakpoints
1231
1232In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1233breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1234
1235* Hardware watchpoints
1236
1237There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1238targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1239
55241689 1240Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1241
1242* Annotations
1243
1244Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1245and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1246
1247* Improved Irix 5 support
1248
1249GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1250
1251* Improved HPPA support
1252
1253GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1254
1255* New native configurations
1256
1257Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1258HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1259Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1260RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1261
1262* New targets
1263
1264OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1265MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1266Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1267
1268* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1269
1270There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1271This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1272
1273* Fixes
1274
1275As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1276and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1277
1278*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1279
1280* Irix 5 is now supported
1281
1282* HPPA support
1283
1284GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1285to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1286GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1287of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1288can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1289
1290
1291*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1292
1293* User visible changes:
1294
1295* Remote Debugging
1296
1297The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1298target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1299debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1300integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1301debugging info for the mips target).
1302
1303* DEC Alpha native support
1304
1305GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1306debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1307work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1308Alpha-specific notes.
1309
1310* Preliminary thread implementation
1311
1312GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1313
1314* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1315
1316This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1317to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1318for details).
1319
1320* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1321
1322This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1323mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1324call methods, ...etc.
1325
1326*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1327
1328 * User visible changes:
1329
1330Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1331supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1332other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1333somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1334
1335Filename completion now works.
1336
1337When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1338arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1339addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1340
1341All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1342vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1343should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1344your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1345to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1346
1347 * DEC alpha support
1348
1349This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1350cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1351
1352
1353*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1354
1355 * Testsuite
1356
1357This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1358The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1359via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1360
1361 * C++ demangling
1362
1363'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1364emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1365Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1366disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1367use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1368
1369 * Simulators
1370
1371GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1372So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1373Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1374
1375 * New targets supported
1376
1377H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1378H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1379SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1380Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1381IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1382
1383Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1384version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1385GO32 memory extender.
1386
1387 * New remote protocols
1388
1389MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1390
1391 * New source languages supported
1392
1393This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1394used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1395into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1396
1397
1398*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1399
1400 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1401
1402GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1403version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1404University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1405compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1406format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1407(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1408
1409Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1410
1411 * Faster and better demangling
1412
1413We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1414demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1415character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1416only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1417This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1418increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1419symbol lookups.
1420
1421`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1422from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1423compiler does not actually implement.
1424
1425 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1426
1427In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1428inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1429recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1430very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1431The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1432circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1433fix.
1434
1435The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1436release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1437
1438 * Improved configure script
1439
1440The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1441you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1442host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1443done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1444
1445We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1446version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1447`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1448The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1449only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1450We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1451
1452 * Documentation improvements
1453
1454There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1455produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1456before submitting changes.
1457
1458The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1459M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1460`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1461you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1462a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1463
1464*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1465We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1466been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1467or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1468`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1469around this problem.
1470
1471 * New features
1472
1473GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1474the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1475`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1476the target program.
1477
1478The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1479how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1480
1481 * New native hosts supported
1482
1483HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1484386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1485
1486 * New targets supported
1487
1488AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1489
1490 * New file formats supported
1491
1492BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1493HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1494
1495 * Major bug fixes
1496
1497Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1498
1499We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1500printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1501
1502We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1503for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1504release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1505
1506You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1507will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1508
1509We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1510for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1511especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1512libraries.
1513
1514The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1515information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1516command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1517any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1518when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1519
1520 * Internal improvements
1521
1522GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1523debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1524
1525GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1526Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1527symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1528contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1529shared code that handles any of them.
1530
1531 * New command line options
1532
1533We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1534
1535 * Mmalloc licensing
1536
1537The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1538General Public License.
1539
1540*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1541
1542 * Host/native/target split
1543
1544GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1545hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1546target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1547local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1548ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1549
1550The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1551GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1552is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1553code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1554any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1555built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1556handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1557
1558GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1559It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1560plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1561
1562 * New hosts supported
1563
1564HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1565386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1566386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1567
1568 * New targets supported
1569
1570Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
157168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1572
1573 * New native hosts supported
1574
1575386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1576 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1577386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1578
1579 * New file formats supported
1580
1581BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1582supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1583format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1584
1585 * New commands
1586
1587`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1588`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1589These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1590
1591`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1592
1593You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1594scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1595prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1596executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1597
1598 * C++ improvements
1599
1600We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1601info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1602symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1603
1604Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1605
1606 * Major bug fixes
1607
1608The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1609fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1610by the compiler.
1611
1612We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1613support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1614
1615John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1616slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1617that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1618purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1619the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1620mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1621
1622Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1623about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1624completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1625we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1626
1627 * AMD 29k support
1628
1629A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1630specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1631calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1632usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1633in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1634
1635We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1636Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1637of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1638resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1639
1640 * Remote interfaces
1641
1642We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1643with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1644message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1645This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1646needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1647breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1648each instruction being stepped through.
1649
1650The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1651registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1652
1653There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1654find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1655Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1656processor with a serial port.
1657
1658 * Configuration
1659
1660Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1661`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1662supported, and what files each one uses.
1663
1664 * Library changes
1665
1666There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1667disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1668Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1669disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1670
1671The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1672Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1673can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1674grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1675
1676 * Documentation
1677
1678The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1679reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1680as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1681encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1682system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1683bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1684
1685And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1686
1687
1688*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1689
1690 * Better support for C++ function names
1691
1692GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1693names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1694(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1695single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1696Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1697
1698GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1699the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1700You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1701lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1702for the list of formats.
1703
1704 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1705
1706Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1707C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1708directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1709can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1710usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1711about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1712this problem.)
1713
1714 * New 'maintenance' command
1715
1716All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1717the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1718can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1719
1720 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1721 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1722 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1723 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1724 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1725 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1726
1727The following commands are new:
1728
1729 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1730 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1731 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1732
1733 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1734
1735We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1736(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1737be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1738read after argv processing.
1739
1740 * New hosts supported
1741
1742Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1743
55241689 1744GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1745
1746We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1747is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1748for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1749masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1750fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1751It costs extra.
1752
1753 * New targets supported
1754
1755Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1756
1757 * More smarts about finding #include files
1758
1759GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1760all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1761greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1762especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1763the one that contains your sources.
1764
1765We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1766breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1767try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1768
1769 * Interesting infernals change
1770
1771GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1772section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1773target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1774stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1775
1776 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1777
1778There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1779 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1780 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1781
1782See the ChangeLog for details.
1783
1784*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1785
1786 * New machines supported (host and target)
1787
1788IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1789
1790SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1791
1792 * New malloc package
1793
1794GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1795Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1796capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1797This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1798pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1799more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1800
1801 * info proc
1802
1803The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1804'help info proc' for details.
1805
1806 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1807
1808The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1809Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1810possible.
1811
1812 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1813
1814Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1815support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1816conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1817environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1818that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1819in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1820
1821 * Cross byte order fixes
1822
1823Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1824targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1825
1826 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1827
1828If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1829system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1830`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1831program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1832called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1833Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1834and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1835the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1836option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1837starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1838
1839You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1840the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1841information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1842slower, but makes future operations faster.
1843
1844The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1845build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1846A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1847use is:
1848
1849 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1850
1851The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1852It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1853shared across multiple host platforms.
1854
1855 * longjmp() handling
1856
1857GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1858siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1859all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1860platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1861
1862 * Solaris 2.0
1863
1864Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1865this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1866reading symbols.
1867
1868 * Bug fixes
1869
1870As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1871People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1872crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1873
1874*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1875
1876 * New machines supported (host and target)
1877
1878SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1879 (except core files)
1880BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1881Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1882
1883 * New machines supported (target)
1884
1885AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1886
1887 * C++ support
1888
1889GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1890The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1891per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1892
1893GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1894`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1895extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1896good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1897will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1898released.
1899
1900 * New features for SVR4
1901
1902GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1903shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1904only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1905
1906The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1907on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1908it prints the address mappings of the process.
1909
1910If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1911bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1912
1913 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1914
1915Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1916now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1917skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1918make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1919same code linked statically.
1920
1921 * New Getopt
1922
1923GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1924version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1925continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1926Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1927added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1928future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1929
1930 * Bugs fixed
1931
1932The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1933Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1934See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1935
1936
1937*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1938
1939 * New machines supported (host and target)
1940
1941Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1942NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1943Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1944
1945 * Almost SCO Unix support
1946
1947We had hoped to support:
1948SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1949(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1950that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1951about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1952
1953 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1954
1955GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1956debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1957is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1958send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1959reqired (if any).
1960
1961 * New Readline
1962
1963GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1964is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1965required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1966
1967 * Bugs fixed
1968
1969The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1970Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1971See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1972
1973 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1974
1975GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1976supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1977symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1978
1979Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1980mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1981debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1982mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1983version 2.
1984
1985Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1986really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1987line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1988variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1989situation somewhat.
1990
1991When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1992However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1993methods.
1994
1995We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1996DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1997encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1998
1999
2000*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2001
2002 * Improved configuration
2003
2004Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2005Porting BFD is simpler.
2006
2007 * Stepping improved
2008
2009The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2010of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2011in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2012function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2013
2014 * Bug fixing
2015
2016Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2017
2018 * New host supported (not target)
2019
2020Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2021
2022
2023*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2024
2025 * Multiple source language support
2026
2027GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2028It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2029and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2030language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2031You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2032`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2033
2034 * GDB and Modula-2
2035
2036GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2037currently under development at the State University of New York at
2038Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2039continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2040
2041Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2042debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2043symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2044
2045There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2046in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2047
2048 * set write on/off
2049
2050GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2051a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2052the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2053by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2054effect immediately.
2055
2056 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2057
2058When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2059shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2060The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2061examining core files.
2062
2063 * set listsize
2064
2065You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2066The default is 10.
2067
2068 * New machines supported (host and target)
2069
2070SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2071Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2072Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2073
2074 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2075
2076IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2077
2078 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2079
2080AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2081AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2082Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2083
2084 * New remote interfaces
2085
2086AMD 29000 Adapt
2087AMD 29000 Minimon
2088
2089
2090*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2091
2092 * New Facilities
2093
2094Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2095
2096Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2097target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2098is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2099remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2100remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2101also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2102using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2103stub on the target system.
2104
2105New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2106
2107GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2108library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2109object file types such as a.out and coff.
2110
2111There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2112refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2113
2114
2115 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2116
2117All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2118by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2119
2120For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2121``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2122Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2123
2124What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2125print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2126will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2127all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2128
2129confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2130 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2131 it is already running. Default is ON.
2132
2133editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2134 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2135 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2136 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2137 Default is ON.
2138
2139history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2140 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2141 or the value of the environment variable
2142 GDBHISTFILE.
2143
2144history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2145 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2146 HISTSIZE.
2147
2148history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2149 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2150 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2151
2152history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2153 history expansion will be performed on
2154 command line input. The default is OFF.
2155
2156radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2157 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2158 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2159
2160height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2161 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2162 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2163 variable TERM.
2164
2165width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2166 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2167 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2168 variable TERM.
2169
2170Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2171``set width'' instead.
2172
2173print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2174 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2175 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2176 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2177
2178print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2179 is OFF.
2180
2181print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2182 "raw" form if off.
2183
2184print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2185 like instructions.
2186
2187print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2188
2189
2190 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2191
2192The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2193new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2194are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2195window.
2196
2197
2198 * Support for Shared Libraries
2199
2200GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2201Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2202before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2203happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2204At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2205from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2206shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2207It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2208
2209sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2210 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2211 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2212
2213info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2214
2215
2216 * Watchpoints
2217
2218A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2219expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2220tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2221quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2222problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2223more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2224
2225watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2226
2227info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2228
2229delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2230disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2231enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2232
2233
2234 * C++ multiple inheritance
2235
2236When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2237for C++ programs.
2238
2239 * C++ exception handling
2240
2241Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2242ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2243the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2244handler's context).
2245
2246catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2247 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2248 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2249
2250info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2251 current stack frame.
2252
2253
2254 * Minor command changes
2255
2256The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2257command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2258is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2259
2260The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2261at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2262frames without printing.
2263
2264 * New directory command
2265
2266'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2267The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2268about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2269with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2270find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2271
2272 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2273
2274For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2275for more details.
2276
2277GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2278two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2279Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2280where the program that you are debugging will run.
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