* gdb.base/watchpoints.c: Add copyright header. Reformat one
[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 6.8
5
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6* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
7dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
8them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
9for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
10"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
11
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12* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
13breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
14or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
15the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
16for tracepoint actions.
17
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18* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
19in hex as well as in symbolic form."
20
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21* Process record and replay
22
23 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
24 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
25 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
26 execute commands.
27
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28* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
29step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
30set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
31reverse execution.
32
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33* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
34feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
352.6.28 or later.
36
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37* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
38target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
39char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
40literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
41U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
42`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
43system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
44the installation instructions for more information.
45
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46* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
47remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
48with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
49the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
50
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51* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
52and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
53
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54* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
55now complete on file names.
56
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57* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
58completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
59For instance, consider:
60
61 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
62 # struct example variable;
63 (gdb) p variable.
64
65If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
66completions will be "f1" and "f2".
67
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68* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
69the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
70
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71* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
72operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
73macros.
74
47a3467a 75* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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76the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
77implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
78
79* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
80registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
81can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
82and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 83
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84* New remote packets
85
86qSearch:memory:
87 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
88
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89QStartNoAckMode
90 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
91 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
92 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
93
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94vKill
95 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
96 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
97
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98qXfer:osdata:read
99 Obtains additional operating system information
100
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101qXfer:siginfo:read
102qXfer:siginfo:write
103 Read or write additional signal information.
104
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105* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
106
107 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
108 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
109 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
110
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111* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
112source+assembly.
113
c055b101 114* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 115DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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116
117* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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118and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
119`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 120
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121* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
122with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
123
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124* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
125
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126* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
127
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128* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
129which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
130
1fddbabb 131* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 132list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 133
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134* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
135conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
136have also been fixed.
137
bfb8797a 138* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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139From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
140are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 141
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142* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
143example, given:
144
145 template<typename T> class C { };
146 C<char const *> c;
147
148GDB will now correctly handle all of:
149
150 ptype C<char const *>
151 ptype C<char const*>
152 ptype C<const char *>
153 ptype C<const char*>
154
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155* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
156
157 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
158 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
159
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160 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
161 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
162 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
163
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164 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
165 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
166
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167 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
168 gdbserver.
169
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170 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
171 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
172
173 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
174 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
175 as appropriate.
176
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177* Python scripting
178
179 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
180 available is determined at configure time.
181
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182 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
183
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184* Ada tasking support
185
186 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
187 been introduced:
188
189 info tasks
190 Print the list of Ada tasks.
191 info task N
192 Print detailed information about task number N.
193 task
194 Print the task number of the current task.
195 task N
196 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
197
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198* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
199add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
200
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201* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
202
203 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
204 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
205 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
206 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
207 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
208 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
209 below.
210
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211* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
212"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
213information.
214
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215* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
216to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
217architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
218See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
219more information.
220
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221* Multi-architecture debugging.
222
223 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
224 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
225 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
226 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
227 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
228
229* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
230use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
231Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
232powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
233--enable-targets configure option.
234
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235* Non-stop mode debugging.
236
237 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
238 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
239 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
240 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
241 section in the user manual for more information.
242
243 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
244 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
245 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
246 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
247 extensions on linux targets.
248
d7713ae0 249* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 250
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251catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
252 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
253 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
254 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
255 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
256 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
257 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
258 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
259 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
260
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261find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
262 val1 [, val2, ...]
263 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
264
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265maint set python print-stack
266maint show python print-stack
267 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
268
269python [CODE]
270 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
271
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272macro define
273macro list
274macro undef
275 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
276 interactively.
277
278info os processes
279 Show operating system information about processes.
280
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281info inferiors
282 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
283
284inferior NUM
285 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
286
287detach inferior NUM
288 Detach from inferior number NUM.
289
290kill inferior NUM
291 Kill inferior number NUM.
292
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293* New options
294
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295set spu stop-on-load
296show spu stop-on-load
297 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
298
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299set spu auto-flush-cache
300show spu auto-flush-cache
301 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
302 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
303
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304set sh calling-convention
305show sh calling-convention
306 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
307
e0a3ce09 308set debug timestamp
75feb17d 309show debug timestamp
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310 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
311
312set disassemble-next-line
313show disassemble-next-line
314 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
315 the debuggee stops.
316
317set remote noack-packet
318show remote noack-packet
319 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
320 under "New remote packets."
321
322set remote query-attached-packet
323show remote query-attached-packet
324 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
325
326set remote read-siginfo-object
327show remote read-siginfo-object
328 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
329 packet.
330
331set remote write-siginfo-object
332show remote write-siginfo-object
333 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
334 packet.
335
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336set remote reverse-continue
337show remote reverse-continue
338 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
339
340set remote reverse-step
341show remote reverse-step
342 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
343
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344set displaced-stepping
345show displaced-stepping
346 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
347 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
348 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
349
350set debug displaced
351show debug displaced
352 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
353
354maint set internal-error
355maint show internal-error
356 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
357
358maint set internal-warning
359maint show internal-warning
360 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 361
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362set exec-wrapper
363show exec-wrapper
364unset exec-wrapper
365 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 366
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367set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
368show multiple-symbols
369 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
370 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
371 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
372
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373set breakpoint always-inserted
374show breakpoint always-inserted
375 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
376 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
377 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
378
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379set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
380show arm fallback-mode
381set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
382show arm force-mode
383 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
384 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
385 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
386 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
387
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388set disable-randomization
389show disable-randomization
390 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
391 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
392 multiple debugging sessions.
393
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394set non-stop
395show non-stop
396 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
397 a breakpoint.
398
b3eb342c 399set target-async
d7713ae0 400show target-async
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401 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
402 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
403 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
404 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
405
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406set target-wide-charset
407show target-wide-charset
408 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
409 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
410
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411set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
412show tcp auto-retry
413set tcp connect-timeout
414show tcp connect-timeout
415 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
416 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
417 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
418
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419set libthread-db-search-path
420show libthread-db-search-path
421 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
422 libthread_db.
423
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424set schedule-multiple (on|off)
425show schedule-multiple
426 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
427 the current process.
428
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429set stack-cache
430show stack-cache
431 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
432 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
433 affecting correctness.
434
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435set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
436show interactive-mode
437 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
438 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
439 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
440 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
441 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
442
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443* Removed commands
444
445info forks
446 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
447 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
448 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
449 command.
450
451fork NUM
452 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
453 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
454 alias for the `fork' command.
455
456process PID
457 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
458 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
459 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
460
461delete fork NUM
462 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
463 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
464 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
465 fork' command.
466
467detach fork NUM
468 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
469 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
470 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
471 fork' command.
472
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473* New native configurations
474
475x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
476
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477x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
478
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479* New targets
480
c28c63d8 481Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 482x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 483x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 484S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 485
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486* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
487 (mingw32ce) debugging.
488
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489* Removed commands
490
491catch load
492catch unload
493 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
494
75feb17d 495*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 496
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497* New native configurations
498
499NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 500Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
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501
502* New targets
503
504NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 505Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 506
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507* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
508
509 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
510 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
511 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
512 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
513
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514* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
515(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
516
fe6fbf8b 517* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 518is resolved.
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519
520* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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521including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
522and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 523
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524* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
525accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
526more than one contiguous range of addresses.
527
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528* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
529
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530* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
531registers on PowerPC targets.
532
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533* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
534targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
535
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536* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
537commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
538
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539* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
540extended-remote mode.
541
24a836bd 542* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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543The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
544error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
545The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 546
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547* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
548building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
549target architectures.
550
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551* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
552Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
553now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
554stored in two consecutive float registers.
555
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556* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
557breakpoints now.
558
b93b6ca7 559* Improved support for debugging Ada
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560Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
561include:
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562 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
563 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
564 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
565 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
566 of an assignment
567 - Improved command completion in Ada
568 - Several bug fixes
569
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570* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
571process.
572
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573* New commands
574
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575set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
576show print frame-arguments
577 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
578 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
579
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580remote put
581remote get
582remote delete
583 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
584
585* New MI commands
586
587-target-file-put
588-target-file-get
589-target-file-delete
590 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
591
592* New remote packets
593
594vFile:open:
595vFile:close:
596vFile:pread:
597vFile:pwrite:
598vFile:unlink:
599 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 600
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601vAttach
602 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
603 mode.
604
605vRun
606 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
607
8d5f9c6f 608*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 609
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610* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
611bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
612Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
613
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614* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
615symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
616-Bsymbolic linker option.
617
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618* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
619recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
620is not supported.
621
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622* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
623frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
624
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625* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
62632-bit or 64-bit register values.
627
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628* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
629
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630* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
631target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
632a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
633
ea37ba09
DJ
634* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
635automatically displayed as character or string data.
636
637* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
638arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
639as strings.
e1f48ead 640
123dc839
DJ
641* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
642for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 643only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 644
05a4558a
DJ
645* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
646iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 647
7c963485
PA
648* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
649ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
650has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
651
b18be20d
DJ
652* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
653
0ca420ce
UW
654* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
655
31d99776
DJ
656* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
657layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
658segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
659
a4642986
MR
660* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
661immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
662
cfa9d6d9
DJ
663* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
664"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
665packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
666where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
667Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
668
669* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
670(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
671
672* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
673according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 674
c9bb8148
DJ
675* New commands
676
23776285
MR
677set remoteflow
678show remoteflow
679 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
680 when debugging using remote targets.
681
c9bb8148
DJ
682set mem inaccessible-by-default
683show mem inaccessible-by-default
684 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
685 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
686 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
687 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
688 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
689
690set breakpoint auto-hw
691show breakpoint auto-hw
692 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
693 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
694 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
695 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
696 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
697 including "next" and "finish".
698
0e420bd8
JB
699catch exception
700catch exception unhandled
701 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
702
703catch assert
704 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
705
f822c95b
DJ
706set sysroot
707show sysroot
708 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
709 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
710 an alias to "set sysroot".
711
83cc5c53
UW
712info spu
713 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
714 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
715 architecture.
716
bd372731
MK
717* New native configurations
718
719OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
720
23181151
DJ
721set tdesc filename
722unset tdesc filename
723show tdesc filename
724 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
725 not query the target for its built-in description.
726
c9bb8148
DJ
727* New targets
728
54fe9172 729OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 730MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 731Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 732
6dd09645
JB
733* New remote packets
734
735QPassSignals:
736 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
737 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
738
23181151
DJ
739qXfer:features:read:
740 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
741 features.
6dd09645 742
83cc5c53
UW
743qXfer:spu:read:
744qXfer:spu:write:
745 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
746 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
747
cfa9d6d9
DJ
748qXfer:libraries:read:
749 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
750 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
751 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
752 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
753
483367ee
DJ
754* Removed targets
755
756Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
757
d08950c4
UW
758alpha*-*-osf1*
759alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 760d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
761hppa*-*-hiux*
762i[34567]86-ncr-*
763i[34567]86-*-dgux*
764i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
765i[34567]86-*-netware*
766i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
767i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
768i[34567]86-*-sco*
769i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
770i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
771i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
772i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
773i[34567]86-*-unixware*
774i[34567]86-*-sysv*
775i[34567]86-*-isc*
776m68*-cisco*-*
777m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 778mips*-*-pe
483367ee 779rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 780sh*-*-pe
483367ee 781
7ce59000
DJ
782* Other removed features
783
784target abug
785target cpu32bug
786target est
787target rom68k
788
789 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
790
ea35711c
DJ
791target hms
792target e7000
793target sh3
794target sh3e
795
796 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
797 H8/300.
798
799target ocd
800
801 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
802 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
803 interfaces.
804
7ce59000
DJ
805DWARF 1 support
806
807 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
808 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
809
54d61198
DJ
810Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
811
812 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
813 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
814 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
815 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
816
ea35711c
DJ
817MIPS ".pdr" sections
818
819 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
820 in debugging information.
821
822Scheme support
823
824 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
825 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
826
1a69e1e4
DJ
827set mips stack-arg-size
828set mips saved-gpreg-size
829
830 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
831
6dd09645 832*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 833
ca3bf3bd
DJ
834* New targets
835
836Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 837Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 838
6aec2e11
DJ
839* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
840(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
841running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
842
843* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
844Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
845supported.
846
17218d91
DJ
847* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
848broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
849
9ebce043
DJ
850* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
851stub provides the required support.
852
7d3d3ece
DJ
853* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
854longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
855
4f8253f3
JB
856* New commands
857
858set substitute-path
859unset substitute-path
860show substitute-path
861 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
862 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
863 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
864 between compilation and debugging.
865
9fa66fd7
AS
866set trace-commands
867show trace-commands
868 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
869 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
870 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
871
1f5befc1
DJ
872* REMOVED features
873
874The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
875
2ec3381a
DJ
876Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
877an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
878
3d00d119
DJ
879The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
880
be2a5f71
DJ
881* New remote packets
882
883qSupported:
884 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
885 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
886 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
887 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
888 target.
889
0876f84a
DJ
890qXfer:auxv:read:
891 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
892 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
893
9ebce043
DJ
894qXfer:memory-map:read:
895 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
896 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
897
898vFlashErase:
899vFlashWrite:
900vFlashDone:
901 Erase and program a flash memory device.
902
0876f84a
DJ
903* Removed remote packets
904
905qPart:auxv:read:
906 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
907 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
908
e374b601 909*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 910
96309189
MS
911* New targets
912
913Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
914
915Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
916
53e5f3cf
AS
917* New commands
918
919init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
920 only if it doesn't already have a value.
921
ac264b3b
MS
922The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
923
924checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
925
926restart <n> Return the program state to a
927 previously saved state.
928
929info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
930
931delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
932
933set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
934 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
935
936info forks List forks of the user program that
937 are available to be debugged.
938
939fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
940 forks of the user program that are
941 available to be debugged.
942
943delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
944 that are available to be debugged (and
945 kill the forked process).
946
947detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
948 that are available to be debugged (and
949 allow the process to continue).
950
3950dc3f
NS
951* New architecture
952
953Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
954
0ea3f30e
DJ
955* Improved Windows host support
956
957GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
958native console support, and remote communications using either
959network sockets or serial ports.
960
f79daebb
GM
961* Improved Modula-2 language support
962
963GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
964basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
965pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
966printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
967written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
968GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
969
acab6ab2
MM
970* REMOVED features
971
972The ARM rdi-share module.
973
f4267320
DJ
974The Netware NLM debug server.
975
53e5f3cf 976*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 977
e0ecbda1
MK
978* New native configurations
979
02a677ac 980OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
981OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
982
d64a6579
KB
983* New targets
984
985Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
986
b33a6190
AS
987* New command line options
988
989--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
990--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
991 the child (debugged) program exited with.
992--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
993 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
994 specified multiple times and in conjunction
995 with the --command (-x) option.
996
11dced61
AC
997* Deprecated commands removed
998
999The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1000removed:
1001
1002 Command Replacement
1003 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1004 othernames set arm disassembler
1005 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1006 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1007 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1008 regs info registers
1009
6fe85783
MK
1010* New BSD user-level threads support
1011
1012It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1013library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1014configurations are:
1015
1016FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1017FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1018OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1019
1020Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1021are not yet supported.
1022
5260ca71
MS
1023* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1024(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1025
e84ecc99
AC
1026* REMOVED configurations and files
1027
1028VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1029Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1030National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1031
31e35378
JB
1032* New "set print array-indexes" command
1033
1034After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1035when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1036behavior.
1037
e85e5c83
MK
1038* VAX floating point support
1039
1040GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1041
d91e9901
AS
1042* User-defined command support
1043
1044In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1045to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1046section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1047
f2cb65ca
MC
1048*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1049
f47b1503
AS
1050* New command line option
1051
1052GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1053debugging.
1054
f2cb65ca
MC
1055* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1056
1057GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1058information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1059by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1060proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1061to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1062
d08c0230
AC
1063* Internationalization
1064
1065When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1066internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1067continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1068
117ea3cf
PH
1069* Ada
1070
1071Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1072implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1073into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1074
d08c0230
AC
1075* New native configurations
1076
1077GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1078
1079* Remote 'p' packet
1080
1081GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1082packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1083
1084* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1085
1086GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1087The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1088features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1089i386 application).
1090
1091GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1092compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1093continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1094configurations:
1095
1096hppa-*-hpux
1097ia64-*-aix
1098mips-*-irix*
1099*-*-lynx
1100mips-*-linux-gnu
1101sds protocol
1102xdr protocol
1103powerpc bdm protocol
1104
1105Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1106made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1107
1108* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1109
1110Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1111been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1112configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1113permanently REMOVED.
1114
1115h8300-*-*
1116mcore-*-*
1117mn10300-*-*
1118ns32k-*-*
1119sh64-*-*
1120v850-*-*
1121
ebb7c577
AC
1122*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1123
1124* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1125
1126When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1127heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1128been fixed.
1129
1130* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1131
1132When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1133fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1134IRIX long double values).
1135
1136* VAX and "next"
1137
1138A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1139command. This problem has been fixed.
1140
860660cb 1141*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1142
0dea2468
AC
1143* Fix for ``many threads''
1144
1145On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1146rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1147error message:
1148
1149 ptrace: No such process.
1150 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1151
1152This problem has been fixed.
1153
2c07db7a
AC
1154* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1155
1156Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1157GDB to dump core).
1158
c23968a2
JB
1159* New ``start'' command.
1160
1161This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1162
71009278
MK
1163* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1164
1165Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1166live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1167platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1168
1169FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1170FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1171NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1172NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1173NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1174OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1175OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1176OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1177OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1178
3c0b7db2
AC
1179* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1180
1181Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1182These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1183of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1184call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1185signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1186
73cc75f3
AC
1187Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1188features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1189include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1190
7243600a
BF
1191* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1192
6f606e1c
MK
1193* New native configurations
1194
97dc871c 1195GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1196OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1197OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1198OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1199OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1200NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1201OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1202
a1b461bf
AC
1203* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1204
1205GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1206The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1207including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1208migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1209compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1210work, was also included.
1211
1212GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1213module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1214
1215h8300-*-*
1216mcore-*-*
1217mn10300-*-*
1218ns32k-*-*
1219sh64-*-*
1220v850-*-*
1221xstormy16-*-*
1222
1223Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1224made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1225
3c7012f5
AC
1226* REMOVED configurations and files
1227
1228Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1229Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1230Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1231Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1232Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1233AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1234Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1235decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1236riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1237sonymips mips-sony-*
1238sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1239
e5fe55f7
AC
1240*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1241
1242* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1243
1244The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1245GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1246command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1247program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1248with GDB".
1249
1250* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1251
1252Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1253libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1254cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1255GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1256shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1257the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1258are created.
1259
1260Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1261
1262* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1263
1264The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1265non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1266compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1267
1268* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1269
1270Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1271wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1272
1273* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1274
1275The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1276permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1277systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1278
1279* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1280
1281Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1282has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1283
1284* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1285
1286GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1287its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1288panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1289
1290* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1291
1292When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1293by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1294not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1295
faae5abe 1296*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1297
9175c9a3
MC
1298* Removed --with-mmalloc
1299
1300Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1301conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1302
3cc87ec0
MK
1303* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1304
1305The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1306the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1307and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1308you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1309
f0424ef6
MK
1310* Revised SPARC target
1311
1312The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1313FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1314support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1315from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1316(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1317
59659be2
ILT
1318* New C++ demangler
1319
1320GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1321names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1322with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1323programs.
1324
9e08b29b
DJ
1325* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1326
1327GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1328arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1329encountered these.
1330
8dfe8985
DC
1331* C++ nested types and namespaces
1332
1333GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1334improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1335is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1336Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1337namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1338"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1339frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1340if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1341GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1342
cced5e27
MK
1343* New native configurations
1344
1345NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1346OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1347OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1348OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1349OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1350
b4b4b794
KI
1351* New debugging protocols
1352
1353M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1354
7989c619
AC
1355* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1356
1357The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1358and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1359tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1360
5994185b
AC
1361* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1362
1363Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1364been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1365configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1366permanently REMOVED.
1367
1368Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1369Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1370Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1371Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1372Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1373AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1374Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1375decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1376riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1377sonymips mips-sony-*
1378sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1379
0ddabb4c
AC
1380* REMOVED configurations and files
1381
1382SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1383SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1384Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1385Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1386H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1387HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1388HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1389HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1390PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1391386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1392Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1393 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1394 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1395SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1396SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1397Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1398Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1399
c7f1390e
DJ
1400*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1401
1fe43d45
AC
1402* Objective-C
1403
1404Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1405integrated into GDB.
1406
e6beb428
AC
1407* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1408
1409DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1410information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1411By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1412backtraces.
1413
1414The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1415have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1416DWARF 2 CFI support.
1417
1418* Hosted file I/O.
1419
1420GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1421file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1422remote protocol documentation for details.
1423
1424* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1425
1426All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1427architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1428to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1429ppc32 on ppc64).
1430
1431* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1432
1433GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1434per-thread variables.
1435
1436* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1437
1438GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1439GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1440
1441* Separate debug info.
1442
1443GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1444automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1445of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1446system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1447and optional debug files.
1448
1449* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1450
1451DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1452describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1453debugger.
1454
1455GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1456for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1457
1458* Java
1459
1460A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1461Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1462considered "useable".
1463
85f8f974
DJ
1464* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1465
1466The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1467commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1468kernel.
1469
0fac0b41
DJ
1470* GDB supports logging output to a file
1471
1472There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1473used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1474
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1475* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1476
1477The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1478disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1479command.
1480
e286caf2 1481* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1482
1483The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1484registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1485
d28f9cdf
DJ
1486* Profiling support
1487
1488A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1489be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1490session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1491"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1492data, for more informative profiling results.
1493
da0f9dcd
AC
1494* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1495
1496The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1497option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1498"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1499
1500Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1501removed.
1502
fb9b6b35
JJ
1503Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1504Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1505Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1506 in a subsequent -var-update.
1507
954a4db8
MK
1508* New native configurations.
1509
1510FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1511
6760f9e6
JB
1512* Multi-arched targets.
1513
b4263afa 1514HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1515Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1516
1b831c93
AC
1517* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1518
1519Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1520been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1521configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1522permanently REMOVED.
1523
8b0e5691 1524Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1525Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1526H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1527HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1528HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1529HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1530PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1531Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1532 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1533 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1534Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1535Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1536
5835abe7
NC
1537* REMOVED configurations and files
1538
1539V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1540Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1541IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1542i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1543i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1544i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1545HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1546 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1547 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1548Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1549Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1550Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1551OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1552I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1553
a094c6fb
AC
1554* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1555
1556The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1557the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1558context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1559address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1560The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1561
299ffc64 1562*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1563
46248966
AC
1564* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1565
1566When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1567`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1568in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1569library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1570shared libs like mad''.
1571
b9d14705 1572* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1573
b9d14705
DJ
1574Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1575the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1576arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1577powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1578
e0e9281e
JB
1579* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1580
1581GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1582and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1583they expand.
1584
dd73b9bb
AC
1585The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1586invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1587
1588The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1589macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1590
e0e9281e
JB
1591Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1592information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1593your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1594information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1595
2250ee0c
CV
1596* Multi-arched targets.
1597
6e3ba3b8
JT
1598DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1599DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1600NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1601National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1602Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1603Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1604
cd9bfe15 1605* New targets.
e33ce519 1606
456f8b9d
DB
1607Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1608
e33ce519 1609
da8ca43d
JT
1610* New native configurations
1611
1612Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1613SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1614MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1615UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1616
cd9bfe15
AC
1617* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1618
1619Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1620been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1621configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1622permanently REMOVED.
1623
92eb23c5 1624Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1625OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1626IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1627Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1628Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1629Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1630i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1631i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1632i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1633HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1634 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1635 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1636I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1637
db034ac5
AC
1638* OBSOLETE languages
1639
1640CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1641
cd9bfe15
AC
1642* REMOVED configurations and files
1643
1644AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1645A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1646AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1647AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1648AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1649
1650testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1651
20f01a46
DH
1652* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1653
1654This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1655commands. The default is 1024.
1656
a5941fbf
MK
1657* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1658
1659Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1660
89743e04
MS
1661* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1662
1663These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1664to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1665from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1666
9fb14e79
JB
1667* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1668
1669The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1670including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1671of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1672
2037aebb
AC
1673*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1674
1675* New targets.
1676
1677Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1678
1679* Bug fixes
1680
1681gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1682mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1683Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1684
1685gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1686dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1687Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1688
1689Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1690Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1691By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1692
1693i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1694avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1695By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1696
37057839 1697*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1698
1a703748
MS
1699* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1700
1701This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1702really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1703In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1704target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1705This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1706(notably embedded) targets.
1707
cefd4ef5
MS
1708* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1709
55241689
AC
1710This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1711process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1712GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1713hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1714
352ed7b4
MS
1715* New command line option
1716
1717GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1718
1719* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1720
1721There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1722command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1723a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1724be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1725open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1726issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1727a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1728it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1729GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1730is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1731
fe419ffc
RE
1732* Changes in ARM configurations.
1733
1734Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1735configuration is fully multi-arch.
1736
eb7cedd9
MK
1737* New native configurations
1738
fe419ffc 1739ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1740x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1741AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1742Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1743
c9f63e6b
CV
1744* New targets
1745
1746Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1747
9b4ff276
AC
1748* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1749
1750Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1751been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1752configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1753permanently REMOVED.
1754
1755AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1756A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1757AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1758AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1759AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1760
b4ceaee6 1761testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1762
e2caac18
AC
1763* REMOVED configurations and files
1764
1765TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1766WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1767PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1768PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1769PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1770Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1771Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1772 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1773SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1774Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1775Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1776ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1777Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1778
c2a727fa
TT
1779* Changes to command line processing
1780
1781The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1782for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1783
467d8519
TT
1784* Changes to key bindings
1785
1786There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1787
7072a954
AC
1788*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1789
1790Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1791
1792Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1793corrupted.
1794
1795Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1796
1797Numerous documentation fixes.
1798
1799Numerous testsuite fixes.
1800
34f47bc4 1801*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1802
1803* New native configurations
1804
1805Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1806x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1807MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1808MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1809ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1810s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1811
bf64bfd6
AC
1812* New targets
1813
def90278 1814Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1815CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1816UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1817
17e78a56 1818* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1819
1820x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1821Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1822Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1823 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1824TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1825WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1826Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1827PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1828PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1829PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1830SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1831Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1832ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1833Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1834
17e78a56
AC
1835stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1836kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1837
7fcca85b
AC
1838Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1839been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1840configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1841permanently REMOVED.
1842
a196c81c 1843* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1844
1845Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1846Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1847Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1848ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1849Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1850ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1851
6d6b80e5 1852* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1853
6d6b80e5 1854GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1855sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1856present.
1857
bf64bfd6
AC
1858* Other news:
1859
e23194cb
EZ
1860* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1861
1862* The MI enabled by default.
1863
1864The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1865revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1866engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1867using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1868which is now deprecated.
1869
1870* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1871
1872GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1873main features are supported:
1874
1875 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1876
1877 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1878 extension;
1879
1880 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1881
1882 - a Pascal expression parser.
1883
1884However, some important features are not yet supported.
1885
1886 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1887
1888 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1889
1890 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1891 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1892
1893 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1894
1895 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1896
1897* Changes in completion.
1898
1899Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1900to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1901users expect at the shell prompt.
1902
1903Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1904`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1905program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1906files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1907be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1908considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1909name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1910
1911`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1912
1913* New platform-independent commands:
1914
1915It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1916hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1917documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1918
1919* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1920
d7275149
MK
1921Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1922revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1923many threads as your system allows you to have.
1924
e23194cb
EZ
1925Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1926
d7275149
MK
1927Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1928multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1929
1930* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1931
1932Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1933
e23194cb
EZ
1934GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1935debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1936supported.)
1937
1938* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1939
1940Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1941breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1942implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1943put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1944and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1945registers.
1946
1947The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1948debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1949watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1950
1951* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1952
1953New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1954the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1955
1956New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1957display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1958IDT.
1959
1960New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1961from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1962New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1963a given linear address.
1964
1965GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1966program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1967which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1968
1969DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1970
6c56c069
EZ
1971It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1972
e23194cb
EZ
1973* Changes in documentation.
1974
1975All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1976Documentation License.
1977
1978Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1979manual.
1980
1981TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1982
1983Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1984manual.
1985
1986The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1987documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1988hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1989
5d6640b1
AC
1990* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1991
1992The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1993``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1994contents of this file.
1995
1a1d8446
AC
1996* gdba.el deleted
1997
1998GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1999
9debab2f 2000*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2001
c63ce875
EZ
2002* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2003
2004Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2005programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2006displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2007greater level of detail.
2008
2009* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2010
2011It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2012bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2013on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2014written.
2015
2016* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2017
2018The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2019necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2020machines ``out of the box''.
2021
2022The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2023possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2024signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2025would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2026interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2027
2028It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2029standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2030even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2031and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2032terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2033
2034The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2035enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2036also works.
2037
2038DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2039GDB.
2040
2041It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2042directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2043times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2044breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2045
ed9a39eb
JM
2046* New native configurations
2047
2048ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2049PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2050
7a292a7a
SS
2051* New targets
2052
96baa820 2053Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2054x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2055PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2056TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2057
085dd6e6
JM
2058* OBSOLETE configurations
2059
2060Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2061Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2062Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2063ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2064Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2065
9debab2f
AC
2066Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2067but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2068these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2069be permanently REMOVED.
2070
5330533d
SS
2071* Gould support removed
2072
2073Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2074
bc9e5bbf
AC
2075* New features for SVR4
2076
2077On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2078without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2079load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2080
2081* Many C++ enhancements
2082
2083C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2084in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2085
adf40b2e
JM
2086* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2087
2088A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2089sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2090with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2091``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2092
2093 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2094 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2095
43e526b9
JM
2096* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2097
2098A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2099expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2100instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2101
2102The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2103added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2104
96baa820
JM
2105* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2106
2107The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2108``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2109include ``set remote P-packet''.
2110
11cf8741
JM
2111* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2112
2113The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2114accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2115``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2116
7876dd43
DB
2117* ``apropos'' command added.
2118
2119The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2120documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2121try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2122
bc9e5bbf
AC
2123* New MI interface
2124
2125A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2126interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2127process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2128"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2129enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2130
2131 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2132
c906108c
SS
2133*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2134
2135* New native configurations
2136
2137HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2138HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2139M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2140
2141* New targets
2142
2143Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2144Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2145Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2146
2147* OBSOLETE configurations
2148
2149Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2150
2151Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2152but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2153these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2154be permanently REMOVED.
2155
2156* ANSI/ISO C
2157
2158As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2159buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2160containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2161use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2162available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2163configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2164information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2165already.
2166
2167* Readline 2.2
2168
2169GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2170
2171* set extension-language
2172
2173You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2174languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2175you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2176 set extension-language .c c++
2177The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2178and their associated languages.
2179
2180* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2181
2182When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2183you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2184PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2185
2186 set processor NAME
2187
2188sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2189following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2190
2191 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2192 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2193 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2194 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2195 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2196 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2197 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2198 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2199 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2200 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2201 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2202
2203At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2204special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2205registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2206only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2207
2208* HP-UX support
2209
2210Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2211more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2212library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2213support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2214for xdb and dbx commands.
2215
2216* Catchpoints
2217
2218HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2219generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2220to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2221
2222This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2223argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2224output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2225
2226* Debugging across forks
2227
2228On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2229in the inferior.
2230
2231* TUI
2232
2233HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2234it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2235configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2236
2237* GDB remote protocol additions
2238
2239A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2240Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2241fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2242allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2243
2244For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2245full 64-bit address. The command
2246
2247 set remoteaddresssize 32
2248
2249can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2250the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2251will be discarded.
2252
2253In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2254command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2255
2256 maint packet heythere
2257
2258sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2259disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2260time.
2261
2262The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2263target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2264downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2265
2266* Tracing can collect general expressions
2267
2268You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2269further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2270doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2271
2272* mask-address variable for Mips
2273
2274For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2275a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2276of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2277
2278* Higher serial baud rates
2279
2280GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2281230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2282to achieve all of these rates.)
2283
2284* i960 simulator
2285
2286The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2287builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2288
2289
2290*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2291
2292* New native configurations
2293
2294Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2295Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2296Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2297PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2298PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2299Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2300Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2301
2302* New targets
2303
2304Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2305Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2306Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2307Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2308MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2309MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2310MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2311Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2312Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2313Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2314NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2315
2316* New debugging protocols
2317
2318ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2319M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2320DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2321PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2322PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2323Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2324
2325* DWARF 2
2326
2327All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2328format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2329information.
2330
2331* Java frontend
2332
2333GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2334only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2335
2336* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2337
2338For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2339loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2340locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2341
2342* Live range splitting
2343
2344GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2345range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2346more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2347
2348* Hurd support
2349
2350GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2351updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2352
2353* ARM Thumb support
2354
2355GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2356instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2357instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2358accordingly.
2359
2360* MIPS16 support
2361
2362GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2363instruction set.
2364
2365* Overlay support
2366
2367GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2368linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2369will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2370control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2371additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2372in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2373
2374* info symbol
2375
2376The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2377the symbol at the specified address.
2378
2379* Trace support
2380
2381The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2382asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2383extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2384includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2385file tracepoint.c for more details.
2386
2387* MIPS simulator
2388
2389Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2390by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2391of most MIPS variants.
2392
2393* Sparc simulator
2394
2395Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2396by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2397Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2398
2399* set architecture
2400
2401For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2402basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2403architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2404the possible architectures.
2405
2406*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2407
2408* New native configurations
2409
2410Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2411M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2412PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2413PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2414PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2415RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2416
2417* New targets
2418
2419ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2420I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2421MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2422MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2423PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2424Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2425Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2426
2427* PowerPC simulator
2428
2429The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2430contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2431PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2432basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2433performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2434
2435* Solaris 2.5
2436
2437GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2438
2439* Windows 95/NT native
2440
2441GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2442To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2443which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2444Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2445ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2446
2447* dont-repeat command
2448
2449If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2450command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2451useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2452extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2453
2454* Send break instead of ^C
2455
2456The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2457rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2458GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2459
2460* Remote protocol timeout
2461
2462The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2463that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2464to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2465
2466* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2467
2468By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2469loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2470stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2471when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2472in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2473
2474Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2475/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2476automatically on hpux10.
2477
2478* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2479
2480Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2481
2482* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2483
2484When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2485may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2486the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2487every character. The default value is 1050.
2488
2489* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2490
2491If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2492a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2493replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2494details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2495remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2496to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2497
2498* Speedups for remote debugging
2499
2500GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2501the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2502and more efficient S-record downloading.
2503
2504* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2505
2506GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2507Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2508
2509*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2510
2511* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2512
2513The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2514can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2515
2516* Remote targets use caching
2517
2518Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2519remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2520it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2521debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2522off' turns the the data cache off.
2523
2524* Remote targets may have threads
2525
2526The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2527in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2528gdb/remote.c for details.
2529
2530* NetROM support
2531
2532If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2533support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2534acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2535write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2536support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2537another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2538sequence is something like
2539
2540 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2541 load <prog>
2542 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2543
2544* Macintosh host
2545
2546GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2547may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2548it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2549available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2550device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2551directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2552scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2553mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2554
2555* Autoconf
2556
2557GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2558but does simplify configuration and building.
2559
2560* hpux10
2561
2562GDB now supports hpux10.
2563
2564*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2565
2566* New native configurations
2567
2568x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2569x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2570NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2571Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2572
2573* New targets
2574
2575A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2576HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2577CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2578PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2579WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2580
2581* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2582
2583GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2584possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2585filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2586the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2587if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2588
2589* Arguments to user-defined commands
2590
2591User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2592Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2593trivial example:
2594define adder
2595 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2596
2597To execute the command use:
2598adder 1 2 3
2599
2600Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2601Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2602use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2603
2604* New `if' and `while' commands
2605
2606This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2607commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2608expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2609execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2610terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2611`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2612if the expression is zero.
2613
2614* Fortran source language mode
2615
2616GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2617Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2618variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2619with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2620Fortran compilers.
2621
2622* Better HPUX support
2623
2624Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2625running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2626processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2627for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2628that behavior do the following before running the program:
2629
2630 adb -w a.out
2631 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2632 control-d
2633
2634This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2635To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2636
2637 adb -w a.out
2638 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2639 control-d
2640
2641You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2642the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2643external linkage.
2644
2645GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2646HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2647
2648* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2649
2650You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2651commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2652current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2653"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2654associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2655configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2656
2657* New DOS host serial code
2658
2659This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2660no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2661a PC's serial port.
2662
2663*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2664
2665* New "complete" command
2666
2667This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2668were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2669
2670* Trailing space optional in prompt
2671
2672"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2673allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2674
2675* Breakpoint hit counts
2676
2677"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2678has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2679can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2680to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2681less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2682that breakpoint.
2683
2684* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2685
2686"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2687an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2688arrays actually contain only short strings.
2689
2690* Shared library breakpoints
2691
2692In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2693breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2694
2695* Hardware watchpoints
2696
2697There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2698targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2699
55241689 2700Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2701
2702* Annotations
2703
2704Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2705and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2706
2707* Improved Irix 5 support
2708
2709GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2710
2711* Improved HPPA support
2712
2713GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2714
2715* New native configurations
2716
2717Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2718HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2719Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2720RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2721
2722* New targets
2723
2724OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2725MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2726Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2727
2728* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2729
2730There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2731This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2732
2733* Fixes
2734
2735As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2736and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2737
2738*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2739
2740* Irix 5 is now supported
2741
2742* HPPA support
2743
2744GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2745to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2746GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2747of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2748can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2749
2750
2751*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2752
2753* User visible changes:
2754
2755* Remote Debugging
2756
2757The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2758target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2759debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2760integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2761debugging info for the mips target).
2762
2763* DEC Alpha native support
2764
2765GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2766debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2767work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2768Alpha-specific notes.
2769
2770* Preliminary thread implementation
2771
2772GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2773
2774* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2775
2776This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2777to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2778for details).
2779
2780* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2781
2782This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2783mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2784call methods, ...etc.
2785
2786*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2787
2788 * User visible changes:
2789
2790Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2791supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2792other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2793somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2794
2795Filename completion now works.
2796
2797When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2798arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2799addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2800
2801All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2802vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2803should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2804your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2805to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2806
2807 * DEC alpha support
2808
2809This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2810cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2811
2812
2813*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2814
2815 * Testsuite
2816
2817This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2818The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2819via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2820
2821 * C++ demangling
2822
2823'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2824emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2825Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2826disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2827use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2828
2829 * Simulators
2830
2831GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2832So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2833Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2834
2835 * New targets supported
2836
2837H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2838H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2839SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2840Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2841IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2842
2843Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2844version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2845GO32 memory extender.
2846
2847 * New remote protocols
2848
2849MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2850
2851 * New source languages supported
2852
2853This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2854used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2855into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2856
2857
2858*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2859
2860 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2861
2862GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2863version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2864University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2865compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2866format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2867(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2868
2869Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2870
2871 * Faster and better demangling
2872
2873We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2874demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2875character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2876only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2877This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2878increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2879symbol lookups.
2880
2881`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2882from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2883compiler does not actually implement.
2884
2885 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2886
2887In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2888inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2889recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2890very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2891The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2892circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2893fix.
2894
2895The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2896release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2897
2898 * Improved configure script
2899
2900The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2901you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2902host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2903done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2904
2905We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2906version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2907`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2908The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2909only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2910We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2911
2912 * Documentation improvements
2913
2914There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2915produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2916before submitting changes.
2917
2918The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2919M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2920`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2921you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2922a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2923
2924*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2925We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2926been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2927or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2928`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2929around this problem.
2930
2931 * New features
2932
2933GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2934the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2935`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2936the target program.
2937
2938The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2939how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2940
2941 * New native hosts supported
2942
2943HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2944386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2945
2946 * New targets supported
2947
2948AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2949
2950 * New file formats supported
2951
2952BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2953HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2954
2955 * Major bug fixes
2956
2957Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2958
2959We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2960printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2961
2962We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2963for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2964release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2965
2966You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2967will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2968
2969We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2970for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2971especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2972libraries.
2973
2974The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2975information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2976command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2977any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2978when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2979
2980 * Internal improvements
2981
2982GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2983debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2984
2985GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2986Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2987symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2988contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2989shared code that handles any of them.
2990
2991 * New command line options
2992
2993We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2994
2995 * Mmalloc licensing
2996
2997The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2998General Public License.
2999
3000*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3001
3002 * Host/native/target split
3003
3004GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3005hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3006target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3007local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3008ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3009
3010The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3011GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3012is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3013code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3014any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3015built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3016handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3017
3018GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3019It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3020plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3021
3022 * New hosts supported
3023
3024HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3025386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3026386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3027
3028 * New targets supported
3029
3030Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
303168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3032
3033 * New native hosts supported
3034
3035386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3036 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3037386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3038
3039 * New file formats supported
3040
3041BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3042supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3043format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3044
3045 * New commands
3046
3047`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3048`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3049These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3050
3051`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3052
3053You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3054scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3055prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3056executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3057
3058 * C++ improvements
3059
3060We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3061info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3062symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3063
3064Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3065
3066 * Major bug fixes
3067
3068The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3069fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3070by the compiler.
3071
3072We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3073support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3074
3075John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3076slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3077that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3078purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3079the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3080mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3081
3082Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3083about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3084completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3085we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3086
3087 * AMD 29k support
3088
3089A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3090specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3091calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3092usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3093in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3094
3095We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3096Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3097of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3098resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3099
3100 * Remote interfaces
3101
3102We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3103with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3104message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3105This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3106needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3107breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3108each instruction being stepped through.
3109
3110The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3111registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3112
3113There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3114find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3115Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3116processor with a serial port.
3117
3118 * Configuration
3119
3120Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3121`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3122supported, and what files each one uses.
3123
3124 * Library changes
3125
3126There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3127disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3128Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3129disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3130
3131The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3132Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3133can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3134grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3135
3136 * Documentation
3137
3138The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3139reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3140as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3141encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3142system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3143bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3144
3145And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3146
3147
3148*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3149
3150 * Better support for C++ function names
3151
3152GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3153names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3154(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3155single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3156Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3157
3158GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3159the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3160You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3161lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3162for the list of formats.
3163
3164 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3165
3166Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3167C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3168directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3169can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3170usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3171about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3172this problem.)
3173
3174 * New 'maintenance' command
3175
3176All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3177the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3178can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3179
3180 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3181 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3182 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3183 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3184 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3185 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3186
3187The following commands are new:
3188
3189 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3190 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3191 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3192
3193 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3194
3195We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3196(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3197be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3198read after argv processing.
3199
3200 * New hosts supported
3201
3202Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3203
55241689 3204GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3205
3206We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3207is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3208for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3209masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3210fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3211It costs extra.
3212
3213 * New targets supported
3214
3215Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3216
3217 * More smarts about finding #include files
3218
3219GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3220all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3221greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3222especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3223the one that contains your sources.
3224
3225We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3226breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3227try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3228
3229 * Interesting infernals change
3230
3231GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3232section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3233target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3234stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3235
3236 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3237
3238There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3239 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3240 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3241
3242See the ChangeLog for details.
3243
3244*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3245
3246 * New machines supported (host and target)
3247
3248IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3249
3250SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3251
3252 * New malloc package
3253
3254GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3255Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3256capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3257This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3258pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3259more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3260
3261 * info proc
3262
3263The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3264'help info proc' for details.
3265
3266 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3267
3268The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3269Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3270possible.
3271
3272 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3273
3274Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3275support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3276conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3277environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3278that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3279in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3280
3281 * Cross byte order fixes
3282
3283Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3284targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3285
3286 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3287
3288If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3289system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3290`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3291program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3292called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3293Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3294and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3295the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3296option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3297starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3298
3299You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3300the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3301information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3302slower, but makes future operations faster.
3303
3304The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3305build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3306A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3307use is:
3308
3309 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3310
3311The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3312It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3313shared across multiple host platforms.
3314
3315 * longjmp() handling
3316
3317GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3318siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3319all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3320platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3321
3322 * Solaris 2.0
3323
3324Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3325this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3326reading symbols.
3327
3328 * Bug fixes
3329
3330As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3331People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3332crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3333
3334*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3335
3336 * New machines supported (host and target)
3337
3338SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3339 (except core files)
3340BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3341Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3342
3343 * New machines supported (target)
3344
3345AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3346
3347 * C++ support
3348
3349GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3350The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3351per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3352
3353GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3354`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3355extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3356good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3357will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3358released.
3359
3360 * New features for SVR4
3361
3362GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3363shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3364only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3365
3366The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3367on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3368it prints the address mappings of the process.
3369
3370If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3371bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3372
3373 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3374
3375Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3376now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3377skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3378make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3379same code linked statically.
3380
3381 * New Getopt
3382
3383GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3384version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3385continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3386Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3387added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3388future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3389
3390 * Bugs fixed
3391
3392The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3393Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3394See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3395
3396
3397*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3398
3399 * New machines supported (host and target)
3400
3401Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3402NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3403Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3404
3405 * Almost SCO Unix support
3406
3407We had hoped to support:
3408SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3409(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3410that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3411about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3412
3413 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3414
3415GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3416debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3417is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3418send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3419reqired (if any).
3420
3421 * New Readline
3422
3423GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3424is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3425required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3426
3427 * Bugs fixed
3428
3429The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3430Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3431See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3432
3433 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3434
3435GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3436supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3437symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3438
3439Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3440mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3441debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3442mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3443version 2.
3444
3445Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3446really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3447line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3448variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3449situation somewhat.
3450
3451When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3452However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3453methods.
3454
3455We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3456DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3457encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3458
3459
3460*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3461
3462 * Improved configuration
3463
3464Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3465Porting BFD is simpler.
3466
3467 * Stepping improved
3468
3469The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3470of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3471in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3472function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3473
3474 * Bug fixing
3475
3476Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3477
3478 * New host supported (not target)
3479
3480Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3481
3482
3483*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3484
3485 * Multiple source language support
3486
3487GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3488It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3489and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3490language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3491You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3492`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3493
3494 * GDB and Modula-2
3495
3496GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3497currently under development at the State University of New York at
3498Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3499continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3500
3501Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3502debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3503symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3504
3505There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3506in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3507
3508 * set write on/off
3509
3510GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3511a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3512the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3513by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3514effect immediately.
3515
3516 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3517
3518When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3519shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3520The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3521examining core files.
3522
3523 * set listsize
3524
3525You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3526The default is 10.
3527
3528 * New machines supported (host and target)
3529
3530SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3531Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3532Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3533
3534 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3535
3536IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3537
3538 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3539
3540AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3541AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3542Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3543
3544 * New remote interfaces
3545
3546AMD 29000 Adapt
3547AMD 29000 Minimon
3548
3549
3550*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3551
3552 * New Facilities
3553
3554Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3555
3556Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3557target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3558is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3559remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3560remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3561also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3562using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3563stub on the target system.
3564
3565New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3566
3567GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3568library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3569object file types such as a.out and coff.
3570
3571There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3572refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3573
3574
3575 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3576
3577All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3578by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3579
3580For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3581``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3582Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3583
3584What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3585print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3586will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3587all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3588
3589confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3590 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3591 it is already running. Default is ON.
3592
3593editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3594 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3595 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3596 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3597 Default is ON.
3598
3599history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3600 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3601 or the value of the environment variable
3602 GDBHISTFILE.
3603
3604history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3605 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3606 HISTSIZE.
3607
3608history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3609 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3610 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3611
3612history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3613 history expansion will be performed on
3614 command line input. The default is OFF.
3615
3616radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3617 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3618 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3619
3620height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3621 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3622 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3623 variable TERM.
3624
3625width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3626 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3627 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3628 variable TERM.
3629
3630Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3631``set width'' instead.
3632
3633print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3634 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3635 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3636 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3637
3638print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3639 is OFF.
3640
3641print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3642 "raw" form if off.
3643
3644print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3645 like instructions.
3646
3647print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3648
3649
3650 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3651
3652The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3653new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3654are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3655window.
3656
3657
3658 * Support for Shared Libraries
3659
3660GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3661Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3662before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3663happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3664At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3665from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3666shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3667It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3668
3669sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3670 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3671 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3672
3673info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3674
3675
3676 * Watchpoints
3677
3678A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3679expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3680tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3681quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3682problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3683more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3684
3685watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3686
3687info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3688
3689delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3690disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3691enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3692
3693
3694 * C++ multiple inheritance
3695
3696When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3697for C++ programs.
3698
3699 * C++ exception handling
3700
3701Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3702ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3703the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3704handler's context).
3705
3706catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3707 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3708 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3709
3710info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3711 current stack frame.
3712
3713
3714 * Minor command changes
3715
3716The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3717command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3718is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3719
3720The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3721at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3722frames without printing.
3723
3724 * New directory command
3725
3726'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3727The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3728about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3729with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3730find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3731
3732 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3733
3734For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3735for more details.
3736
3737GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3738two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3739Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3740where the program that you are debugging will run.
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