* doc/binutils.texi: Add --dwarf-check option.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
8d5b6c2b 4*** Changes since GDB 7.4
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6* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
7 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
8 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
9 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
10 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
11 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
12
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13* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
14 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
15 record/replay support.
16
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17* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
18
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19* Python scripting
20
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21 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
22 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
23
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24 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
25
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26 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
27 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
28
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29 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
30
31 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
32 the source at which the symbol was defined.
33
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34 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
35 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
36 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
37 symbol's value.
38
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39 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
40 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
41
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42 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
43 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
44 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
45
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46* Go language support.
47 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
48 language.
49
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50* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
51 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
52
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53* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
54 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
55
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56* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
57 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
58 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
59 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
60 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
61 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
62
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63* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
64 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
65 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
66 build/libcpp/expr.c.
67
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68* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
69 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
70
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71* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
72 since December 2007.
73
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74* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
75 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
76 command does. For instance:
77
78 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
79
80 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
81 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
82 created, using the "condition" command.
83
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84* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
85 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
86
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87* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
88
89* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
90 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
91 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
92 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new option
93 --use-deprecated-index-sections will cause GDB to use any older
94 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but
95 the ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost
96 in symbol files with older .gdb_index sections.
97
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98* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
99
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100* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
101 target.
102
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103* New commands
104
105 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
106 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
107
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108 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
109 several hits.
110
57651221 111 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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112 C++ and Java objects.
113
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114 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
115 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
116 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
117 configured with '--with-python'.
118
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119 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
120 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
121 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
122 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
123 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
124 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
125 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
126
127 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
128 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
129 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
130 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
131
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132* New targets
133
134Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 135HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 136
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137* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
138 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
139 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
140 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
141 evaluates to true.
142
143* New options
144
145set breakpoint condition-evaluation
146show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 147 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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148 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
149 available mode.
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150 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
151 target.
152
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153set auto-load off
154 Disable auto-loading globally.
155
156show auto-load
157 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
158
159set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
160show auto-load gdb-scripts
161 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
162
163set auto-load python-scripts on|off
164show auto-load python-scripts
165 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
166
167set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
168show auto-load local-gdbinit
169 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
170
171set auto-load libthread-db on|off
172show auto-load libthread-db
173 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
174
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175set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
176show auto-load safe-path
177 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
178 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
179
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180set debug auto-load on|off
181show debug auto-load
182 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
183
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184* New configure options
185
186--with-auto-load-safe-path
187 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
188 above. It defaults to '$ddir/auto-load', $ddir representing GDB's
189 data directory (available via show data-directory).
190
191--without-auto-load-safe-path
192 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
193 security feature.
194
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195* New remote packets
196
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197z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
198
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199 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
200 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
201 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
202 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
203
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204QProgramSignals:
205
206 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
207 program without GDB involvement.
208
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209* New command line options
210
211--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
212 before loading inferior.
213--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
214 execute it before loading inferior.
215
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216*** Changes in GDB 7.4
217
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218* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
219 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
220 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
221 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
222 inferior changes.
223
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224* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
225 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
226
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227* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
228 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
229 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
230 target hardware watchpoint.
231
232 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
233 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
234 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
235 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
236
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237* Python scripting
238
32d1c362 239 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 240 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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241 existing one.
242
3a7bf607 243 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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244 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
245 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
246 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
247 now "message", which just prints the error message without
248 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 249
baacfb07 250 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 251 Python API.
713389e0 252
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253 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
254 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 255 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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256 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
257 corresponding value.
258
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259 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
260 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
261 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
262 on GDB start-up.
263
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264 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
265 static_block will return the global and static blocks
266 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
267 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
268
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269 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
270
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271 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
272 "gdb.breakpoints".
273
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274 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
275 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
276 available in the CLI.
277
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278 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
279 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
280 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
281 "some_type.items()".
282
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283 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
284 new object file.
285
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286 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
287 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
288 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
289 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
290 any anonymous fields.
291
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292* MI changes
293
294 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
295 "solib-event".
296
297 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
298 "=breakpoint-modified".
299
300 ** New command -ada-task-info.
301
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302* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
303 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
304 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
305 lives.
306
307 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
308 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
309 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
310 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
311 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
312
313 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
314 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
315
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316* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
317 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
318 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
319 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
320 use this option to specify where to find it.
321
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322* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
323 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
324 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
325 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
326 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
327 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
328 section in the user manual for more details.
329
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330* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
331 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
332 become available after that.
333
71eba9c2 334* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 335
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336* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
337 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
338 gcc version 4.7.
339
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340* New commands
341
342!SHELL COMMAND
343 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
344 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
345
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346* Changed commands
347
348watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
349 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
350 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
351
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352info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
353 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
354 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
355
71eba9c2 356info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
357 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
358 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
359 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
360 name starts with a hyphen.
361
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362collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
363 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
364 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
365 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
366 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
367 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
368 number of bytes that will be collected.
369
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370tstart [NOTES]
371 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
372 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
373 setting the variable trace-notes.
374
375tstop [NOTES]
376 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
377 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
378 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
379 trace-stop-notes.
380
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381* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
382 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
383 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
384 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
385 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
386 is running.
387
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388* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
389 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
390 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
391
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392* New options
393
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394set extended-prompt
395show extended-prompt
396 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
397 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
398 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
399 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
400 prompt is displayed.
401
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402set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
403show print entry-values
404 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
405 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
406 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
407
408set debug entry-values
409show debug entry-values
410 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
411 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
412
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413set basenames-may-differ
414show basenames-may-differ
415 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
416 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
417 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
418 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
419 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
420 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
421 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
422 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
423
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424set trace-user
425show trace-user
426set trace-notes
427show trace-notes
428 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
429 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
430 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
431 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
432
433set trace-stop-notes
434show trace-stop-notes
435 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
436 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
437 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
438 started by someone else.
439
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440* New remote packets
441
442QTEnable
443
444 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
445
446QTDisable
447
448 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
449
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450QTNotes
451
452 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
453
454qTP
455
456 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
457
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458qTMinFTPILen
459
460 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
461 be placed.
462
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463* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
464 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
465
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466* New targets
467
468Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
469
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470* New Simulators
471
472Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
473
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474*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
475
476* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
477
d6e00af6 478*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 479
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480* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
481 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
482 matches the given regular expression.
483
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484* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
485
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486* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
487 dumping the instruction opcodes.
488
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489* New command line options
490
491-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
492 This is mostly for testing purposes.
493
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494* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
495 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
496
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497* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
498 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
499 source path list instead of augmenting it.
500
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501* GDB now understands thread names.
502
503 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
504 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
505
506 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
507 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
508
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509* OpenCL C
510 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
511 has been integrated into GDB.
512
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513* Python scripting
514
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515 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
516 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
517 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
518
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519 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
520 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
521 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
522 and allows for more dynamic content.
523
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524 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
525 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
526 have an is_valid method.
527
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528 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
529 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
530 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
531
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532 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
533
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534 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
535 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
536 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
537 that function like so:
538
539 result = some_value (10,20)
540
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541 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
542 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
543 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
544
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545 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
546 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
547 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
548 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
549 New function: register_pretty_printer.
550
551 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
552 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
553
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554 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
555
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556 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
557 selected thread.
558
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559 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
560 holds the thread's name.
561
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562 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
563 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 564 occurring in the process being debugged.
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565 The following events are currently supported:
566 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
567 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
568 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
569
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570* C++ Improvements:
571
572 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
573 instantiation. For example, if you have:
574
575 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
576
577 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
578 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
579 was added to GCC 4.5.
580
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581 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
582 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
583 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
584 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
585 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
586 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
587
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588* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
589 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
590 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
591 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
592 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
593
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594* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
595 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
596 execution to a label.
597
598* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
599 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
600 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
601 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
602
b56df873 603* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 604 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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TT
605 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
606 of scope.
607
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608* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
609
610 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
611 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
612 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
613 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
614 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
615 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
616
617 (gdb) info threads
618 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
619
620 While now you see this:
621
622 (gdb) info threads
623 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
624
625 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
626 dumps.
627
628 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
629 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
630 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
631 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
632
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TJB
633* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
634 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
635 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
636 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
637 section in the user manual for more details.
638
248c9dbc
JB
639* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
640
1aee7009
JB
641 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
642 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 643
eb826dc6
MF
644 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
645
44603653
JB
646* New native configurations
647
648ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
649
91021223
MF
650* New targets:
651
652Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
653
6e1bb179
JB
654* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
655 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
656 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
657 in the GDB user manual.
658
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TT
659* Guile support was removed.
660
448a92bf
MF
661* New features in the GNU simulator
662
663 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
664
66ee2731
MF
665 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
666
76b8507d 667*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 668
ba25b921
PA
669* Shared library support for remote targets by default
670
671 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
672 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
673 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
674 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
675 was always disabled for such configurations.
676
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SW
677* C++ Improvements:
678
679 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
680
681 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
682 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
683 For example:
684 namespace A
685 {
686 class B { };
687 void foo (B) { }
688 }
689 ...
690 A::B b
691 foo(b)
692 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
693 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
694 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
695
696 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
697
698 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
699 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
700 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
701 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
702 entry.
703 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
704 mentioned flavors of operators.
705
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DE
706 ** static const class members
707
708 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
709 class definition has been fixed.
710
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PM
711* Windows Thread Information Block access.
712
713 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
714 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
715 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
716 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
717 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
718 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
719
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720* Static tracepoints
721
722 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
723 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
724 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
725 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
726 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
727 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
728 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
729 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
730 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
731 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
732 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
733 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
734 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
735 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
736 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
737 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
738 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
739 the "New remote packets" section below.
740
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SS
741* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
742
743 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
744 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
745 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
746 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
747
748* Observer mode
749
750 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
751 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
752 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
753 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
754 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
755 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
756 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
757
758* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
759 current thread.
760
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761* New remote packets
762
763qGetTIBAddr
764
765 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
766
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PA
767qRelocInsn
768
769 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
770 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
771 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
772 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
773 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
774 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
775
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PA
776qTfSTM, qTsSTM
777
778 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
779
780qTSTMat
781
782 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
783 program.
784
785qXfer:statictrace:read
786
787 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
788 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
789 to gdb's qSupported query.
790
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SS
791QAllow
792
793 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
794
795QTDPsrc
796
797 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
798 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
799
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DE
800* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
801 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
802 a directory.
803
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PA
804* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
805
0fb4aa4b
PA
806 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
807 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
808 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
809 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
810
811 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
812 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
813 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
814 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
815 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
816 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
817 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
818
819 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
820 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 821
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PM
822 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
823
c8d5aac9
L
824* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
825 it understands register description.
826
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TT
827* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
828
8685c86f
L
829* X86 general purpose registers
830
831 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
832 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
833 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
834 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
835 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
836
95a42b64 837* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
838 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
839 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
840 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
841 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
842 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 843
8bd10a10
CM
844* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
845 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
846 in the specified file.
847
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PA
848* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
849 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
850 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
851 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
852 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
853 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
854 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
855 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
856 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
857 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
858
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PA
859* New commands
860
f1421989
HZ
861eval template, expressions...
862 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
863 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
864
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PA
865set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
866show target-file-system-kind
867 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
868 names.
869
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PA
870save breakpoints <filename>
871 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
872 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
873 definitions, use the `source' command.
874
875`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
876is now deprecated.
877
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PA
878info static-tracepoint-markers
879 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
880
881strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
882 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
883 function, line, address, or marker ID.
884
ca11e899
SS
885set observer on|off
886show observer
887 Enable and disable observer mode.
888
889set may-write-registers on|off
890set may-write-memory on|off
891set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
892set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
893set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
894set may-interrupt on|off
895 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
896 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
897 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
898 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
899 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
900 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
901 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
902
903set record memory-query on|off
904show record memory-query
905 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
906 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
907
53a71c06
CR
908* Changed commands
909
910disassemble
911 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
912
f3e9a817
PM
913* Python scripting
914
9279c692
JB
915** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
916 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
917 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
918 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
919 GDB using Python' in the manual.
920
adc36818 921** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
922 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
923 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
924 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 925
fa33c3cd 926** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
927 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
928
929** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
930
931** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 932
967cf477
DE
933** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
934
8a1ea21f
DE
935** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
936 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
937 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
938
a7bdde9e
VP
939* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
940there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
941tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
942regular breakpoints.
943
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PA
944* New targets
945
946ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
947
6aecb9c2
JB
948* D language support.
949 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
950 language.
951
431e49aa
TJB
952* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
953 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
954 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
955 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
956 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
957
958* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
959 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
960 conditions of the form:
961
962 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
963
964 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
965 interface mentioned above.
966
bfbf3774 967*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 968
4eef138c
TT
969* C++ Improvements
970
971 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
972
973 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
974 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
975 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
976 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
977 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
978
4eef138c
TT
979 ** Bug Fixes
980
981 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
982 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
983 qualified name.
984
985 ** Cast Operators
986
987 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
988 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
989
2d1c1221
ME
990* New targets
991
992Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 993Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
994
995* New Simulators
996
997Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 998Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 999
6c95b8df
PA
1000* Multi-program debugging.
1001
1002 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1003 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1004 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1005 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1006 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1007 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1008 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1009 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1010
d5551862
SS
1011* New tracing features
1012
1013 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1014
1015 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1016
1017 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1018 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1019 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1020 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1021 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1022 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1023 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1024 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1025 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1026 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1027
d5551862 1028 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1029
1030 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1031 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1032 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1033 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1034 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1035 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1036 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1037 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1038 the regular trace command.
1039
d5551862
SS
1040 ** Disconnected tracing
1041
1042 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1043 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1044 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1045 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1046 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1047
00bf0b85
SS
1048 ** Trace files
1049
1050 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1051 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1052 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1053 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1054 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1055 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1056 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1057
1058 ** Circular trace buffer
1059
1060 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1061 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1062 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1063 not be available for all target agents.
1064
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PP
1065* Changed commands
1066
1067disassemble
1068 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1069 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1070
0fe7935b
DJ
1071info variables
1072 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1073 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1074
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JB
1075source
1076 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1077 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1078 support.
1079
1080 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1081 "set script-extension" (see below).
1082
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1083* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1084
399cd161
MS
1085record save [<FILENAME>]
1086 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1087 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1088
1089record restore <FILENAME>
1090 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1091 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1092
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PA
1093add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1094 Add a new inferior.
1095
1096clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1097 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1098 inferior has loaded.
1099
1100remove-inferior ID
1101 Remove an inferior.
1102
1103maint info program-spaces
1104 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1105
9a7071a8
JB
1106set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1107show remote interrupt-sequence
1108 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1109 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1110 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1111 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1112 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1113
1114set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1115show remote interrupt-on-connect
1116 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1117 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1118 Linux kernel.
1119
1120set remotebreak [on | off]
1121show remotebreak
1122Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1123
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SS
1124tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1125 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1126
1127info tvariables
1128 List trace state variables and their values.
1129
1130delete tvariable $NAME ...
1131 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1132
6da95a67
SS
1133teval EXPR, ...
1134 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1135 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1136
7a697b8d
SS
1137ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1138 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1139
b0f02ee9
JK
1140* New expression syntax
1141
1142 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1143 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1144
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PA
1145* New options
1146
1147set follow-exec-mode new|same
1148show follow-exec-mode
1149 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1150 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1151 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1152
236f1d4d
SS
1153set default-collect EXPR, ...
1154show default-collect
1155 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1156 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1157 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1158
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SS
1159set disconnected-tracing
1160show disconnected-tracing
1161 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1162 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1163 upon disconnection.
1164
4daf5ac0
SS
1165set circular-trace-buffer
1166show circular-trace-buffer
1167 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1168 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1169 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1170 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1171
fb2e7cb4
JB
1172set script-extension off|soft|strict
1173show script-extension
1174 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1175 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1176 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1177 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1178 evaluation failed.
1179 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1180
2b71fc8e
JB
1181set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1182show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1183 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1184 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1185 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1186 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1187 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1188 is on.
1189
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TT
1190* Python API Improvements
1191
1192 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1193 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1194 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1195
1196 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1197 `is_base_class' attribute.
1198
1199 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1200
1201 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1202 evaluate an expression.
1203
f61e138d
SS
1204* New remote packets
1205
1206QTDV
1207 Define a trace state variable.
1208
1209qTV
1210 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1211
d5551862
SS
1212QTDisconnected
1213 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1214
4daf5ac0
SS
1215QTBuffer:circular
1216 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1217
d5551862
SS
1218qTfP, qTsP
1219 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1220
2d483d34
MS
1221* Bug fixes
1222
1223Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1224
6e0e5977
JB
1225Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1226much more reliable. In particular:
1227 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1228 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1229 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1230 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1231 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1232 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1233 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1234 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1235 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1236 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1237 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1238 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1239 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1240 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1241 non-threaded programs.
1242
93c26624
JK
1243PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1244This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1245libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1246executable program.
1247
abc7453d 1248*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1249
4efc6507
DE
1250* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1251dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1252them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1253for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1254"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1255
782b2b07
SS
1256* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1257breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1258or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1259the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1260for tracepoint actions.
1261
53a71c06
CR
1262* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1263raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1264modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1265
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1266* Process record and replay
1267
1268 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1269 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1270 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1271 execute commands.
1272
64644d9b
MS
1273* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1274step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1275set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1276reverse execution.
1277
b9412953
DD
1278* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1279feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
12802.6.28 or later.
1281
6c7a06a3
TT
1282* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1283target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1284char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1285literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1286U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1287`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1288system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1289the installation instructions for more information.
1290
f1838a98
UW
1291* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1292remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1293with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1294the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1295
55333a84
DE
1296* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1297and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1298
7f6a6314
PM
1299* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1300now complete on file names.
1301
65d12d83
TT
1302* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1303completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1304For instance, consider:
1305
1306 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1307 # struct example variable;
1308 (gdb) p variable.
1309
1310If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1311completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1312
edb3359d
DJ
1313* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1314the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1315
2fae03e8
TT
1316* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1317operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1318macros.
1319
47a3467a 1320* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1321the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1322implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1323
1324* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1325registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1326can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1327and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1328
08388c79
DE
1329* New remote packets
1330
1331qSearch:memory:
1332 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1333
a6f3e723
SL
1334QStartNoAckMode
1335 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1336 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1337 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1338
d7713ae0
EZ
1339vKill
1340 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1341 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1342
07e059b5
VP
1343qXfer:osdata:read
1344 Obtains additional operating system information
1345
47a3467a
PA
1346qXfer:siginfo:read
1347qXfer:siginfo:write
1348 Read or write additional signal information.
1349
060871df
PA
1350* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1351
1352 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1353 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1354 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1355
c055b101 1356* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1357DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1358
1359* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1360and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1361`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1362
31fffb02
CS
1363* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1364with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1365
88d8a8e0
JB
1366* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1367
7f99b190
JB
1368* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1369
ccd213ac
DJ
1370* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1371which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1372
1fddbabb 1373* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1374list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1375
a0ef4274
DJ
1376* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1377conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1378have also been fixed.
1379
bfb8797a 1380* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1381From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1382are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1383
71c25dea
TT
1384* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1385example, given:
1386
1387 template<typename T> class C { };
1388 C<char const *> c;
1389
1390GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1391
1392 ptype C<char const *>
1393 ptype C<char const*>
1394 ptype C<const char *>
1395 ptype C<const char*>
1396
ccd213ac
DJ
1397* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1398
1399 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1400 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1401
7ae0e2a2
UW
1402 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1403 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1404 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1405
a6f3e723
SL
1406 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1407 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1408
da8bd9a3
DJ
1409 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1410 gdbserver.
1411
d70e31dd
DE
1412 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1413 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1414
1415 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1416 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1417 as appropriate.
1418
d57a3c85
TJB
1419* Python scripting
1420
1421 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1422 available is determined at configure time.
1423
d8906c6f
TJB
1424 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1425
aadc346a
JB
1426* Ada tasking support
1427
1428 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1429 been introduced:
1430
1431 info tasks
1432 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1433 info task N
1434 Print detailed information about task number N.
1435 task
1436 Print the task number of the current task.
1437 task N
1438 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1439
adb483fe
DJ
1440* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1441add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1442
2277426b
PA
1443* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1444
1445 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1446 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1447 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1448 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1449 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1450 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1451 below.
1452
08d16641
PA
1453* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1454"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1455information.
1456
e35359c5
UW
1457* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1458to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1459architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1460See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1461more information.
1462
85e747d2
UW
1463* Multi-architecture debugging.
1464
1465 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1466 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1467 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1468 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1469 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1470
1471* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1472use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1473Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1474powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1475--enable-targets configure option.
1476
11ade57a
PA
1477* Non-stop mode debugging.
1478
1479 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1480 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1481 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1482 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1483 section in the user manual for more information.
1484
1485 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1486 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1487 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1488 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1489 extensions on linux targets.
1490
d7713ae0 1491* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1492
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1493catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1494 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1495 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1496 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1497 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1498 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1499 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1500 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1501 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1502
08388c79
DE
1503find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1504 val1 [, val2, ...]
1505 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1506
d57a3c85
TJB
1507maint set python print-stack
1508maint show python print-stack
1509 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1510
1511python [CODE]
1512 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1513
d7713ae0
EZ
1514macro define
1515macro list
1516macro undef
1517 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1518 interactively.
1519
1520info os processes
1521 Show operating system information about processes.
1522
2277426b
PA
1523info inferiors
1524 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1525
1526inferior NUM
1527 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1528
1529detach inferior NUM
1530 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1531
1532kill inferior NUM
1533 Kill inferior number NUM.
1534
d7713ae0
EZ
1535* New options
1536
3285f3fe
UW
1537set spu stop-on-load
1538show spu stop-on-load
1539 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1540
ff1a52c6
UW
1541set spu auto-flush-cache
1542show spu auto-flush-cache
1543 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1544 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1545
d7713ae0
EZ
1546set sh calling-convention
1547show sh calling-convention
1548 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1549
e0a3ce09 1550set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1551show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1552 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1553
1554set disassemble-next-line
1555show disassemble-next-line
1556 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1557 the debuggee stops.
1558
1559set remote noack-packet
1560show remote noack-packet
1561 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1562 under "New remote packets."
1563
1564set remote query-attached-packet
1565show remote query-attached-packet
1566 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1567
1568set remote read-siginfo-object
1569show remote read-siginfo-object
1570 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1571 packet.
1572
1573set remote write-siginfo-object
1574show remote write-siginfo-object
1575 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1576 packet.
1577
40ab02ce
MS
1578set remote reverse-continue
1579show remote reverse-continue
1580 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1581
1582set remote reverse-step
1583show remote reverse-step
1584 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1585
d7713ae0
EZ
1586set displaced-stepping
1587show displaced-stepping
1588 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1589 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1590 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1591
1592set debug displaced
1593show debug displaced
1594 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1595
1596maint set internal-error
1597maint show internal-error
1598 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1599
1600maint set internal-warning
1601maint show internal-warning
1602 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1603
ccd213ac
DJ
1604set exec-wrapper
1605show exec-wrapper
1606unset exec-wrapper
1607 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1608
aad4b048
JB
1609set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1610show multiple-symbols
1611 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1612 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1613 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1614
74960c60
VP
1615set breakpoint always-inserted
1616show breakpoint always-inserted
1617 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1618 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1619 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1620
0428b8f5
DJ
1621set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1622show arm fallback-mode
1623set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1624show arm force-mode
1625 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1626 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1627 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1628 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1629
10568435
JK
1630set disable-randomization
1631show disable-randomization
1632 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1633 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1634 multiple debugging sessions.
1635
d7713ae0
EZ
1636set non-stop
1637show non-stop
1638 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1639 a breakpoint.
1640
b3eb342c 1641set target-async
d7713ae0 1642show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1643 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1644 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1645 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1646 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1647
6c7a06a3
TT
1648set target-wide-charset
1649show target-wide-charset
1650 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1651 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1652
84603566
SL
1653set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1654show tcp auto-retry
1655set tcp connect-timeout
1656show tcp connect-timeout
1657 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1658 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1659 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1660
17a37d48
PP
1661set libthread-db-search-path
1662show libthread-db-search-path
1663 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1664 libthread_db.
1665
d4db2f36
PA
1666set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1667show schedule-multiple
1668 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1669 the current process.
1670
4e5d721f
DE
1671set stack-cache
1672show stack-cache
1673 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1674 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1675 affecting correctness.
1676
910c5da8
JB
1677set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1678show interactive-mode
1679 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1680 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1681 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1682 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1683 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1684
2277426b
PA
1685* Removed commands
1686
1687info forks
1688 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1689 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1690 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1691 command.
1692
1693fork NUM
1694 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1695 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1696 alias for the `fork' command.
1697
1698process PID
1699 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1700 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1701 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1702
1703delete fork NUM
1704 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1705 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1706 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1707 fork' command.
1708
1709detach fork NUM
1710 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1711 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1712 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1713 fork' command.
1714
a80b95ba
TG
1715* New native configurations
1716
1717x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1718
b8bfd3ed
JB
1719x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1720
75a2d5e7
TT
1721* New targets
1722
c28c63d8 1723Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1724x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1725x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1726S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1727
6de3146c
PA
1728* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1729 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1730
d5cbbe6e
JB
1731* Removed commands
1732
1733catch load
1734catch unload
1735 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1736
75feb17d 1737*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1738
af5ca30d
NH
1739* New native configurations
1740
1741NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1742Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1743
1744* New targets
1745
1746NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1747Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1748
7a404eba
PA
1749* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1750
1751 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1752 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1753 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1754 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1755
430ebac9
PA
1756* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1757(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1758
fe6fbf8b 1759* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1760is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1761
1762* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1763including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1764and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1765
10665d76
JB
1766* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1767accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1768more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1769
7cc46491
DJ
1770* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1771
d71340b8
DJ
1772* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1773registers on PowerPC targets.
1774
523c4513
DJ
1775* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1776targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1777
a6b151f1
DJ
1778* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1779commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1780
2d717e4f
DJ
1781* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1782extended-remote mode.
1783
24a836bd 1784* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1785The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1786error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1787The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1788
d0c678e6
UW
1789* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1790building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1791target architectures.
1792
d64a946d
TJB
1793* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1794Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1795now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1796stored in two consecutive float registers.
1797
ee163bf5
VP
1798* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1799breakpoints now.
1800
b93b6ca7 1801* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1802Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1803include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1804 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1805 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1806 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1807 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1808 of an assignment
1809 - Improved command completion in Ada
1810 - Several bug fixes
1811
d001be7a
DJ
1812* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1813process.
1814
a6b151f1
DJ
1815* New commands
1816
6d53d0af
JB
1817set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1818show print frame-arguments
1819 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1820 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1821
a6b151f1
DJ
1822remote put
1823remote get
1824remote delete
1825 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1826
1827* New MI commands
1828
1829-target-file-put
1830-target-file-get
1831-target-file-delete
1832 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1833
1834* New remote packets
1835
1836vFile:open:
1837vFile:close:
1838vFile:pread:
1839vFile:pwrite:
1840vFile:unlink:
1841 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1842
2d717e4f
DJ
1843vAttach
1844 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1845 mode.
1846
1847vRun
1848 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1849
8d5f9c6f 1850*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1851
19d378fc
MS
1852* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1853bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1854Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1855
3a40aaa0
UW
1856* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1857symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1858-Bsymbolic linker option.
1859
a6ec25f2
BW
1860* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1861recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1862is not supported.
1863
6dd09645
JB
1864* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1865frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1866
c9bb8148
DJ
1867* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
186832-bit or 64-bit register values.
1869
0d5de010
DJ
1870* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1871
23181151
DJ
1872* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1873target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1874a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1875
ea37ba09
DJ
1876* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1877automatically displayed as character or string data.
1878
1879* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1880arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1881as strings.
e1f48ead 1882
123dc839
DJ
1883* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1884for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1885only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1886
05a4558a
DJ
1887* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1888iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1889
7c963485
PA
1890* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1891ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1892has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1893
b18be20d
DJ
1894* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1895
0ca420ce
UW
1896* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1897
31d99776
DJ
1898* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1899layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1900segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1901
a4642986
MR
1902* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1903immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1904
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1905* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1906"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1907packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1908where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1909Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1910
1911* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1912(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1913
1914* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1915according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1916
c9bb8148
DJ
1917* New commands
1918
23776285
MR
1919set remoteflow
1920show remoteflow
1921 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1922 when debugging using remote targets.
1923
c9bb8148
DJ
1924set mem inaccessible-by-default
1925show mem inaccessible-by-default
1926 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1927 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1928 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1929 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1930 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1931
1932set breakpoint auto-hw
1933show breakpoint auto-hw
1934 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1935 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1936 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1937 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1938 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1939 including "next" and "finish".
1940
0e420bd8
JB
1941catch exception
1942catch exception unhandled
1943 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1944
1945catch assert
1946 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1947
f822c95b
DJ
1948set sysroot
1949show sysroot
1950 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1951 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1952 an alias to "set sysroot".
1953
83cc5c53
UW
1954info spu
1955 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1956 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1957 architecture.
1958
bd372731
MK
1959* New native configurations
1960
1961OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1962
23181151
DJ
1963set tdesc filename
1964unset tdesc filename
1965show tdesc filename
1966 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1967 not query the target for its built-in description.
1968
c9bb8148
DJ
1969* New targets
1970
54fe9172 1971OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1972MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1973Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1974
6dd09645
JB
1975* New remote packets
1976
1977QPassSignals:
1978 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1979 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1980
23181151
DJ
1981qXfer:features:read:
1982 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1983 features.
6dd09645 1984
83cc5c53
UW
1985qXfer:spu:read:
1986qXfer:spu:write:
1987 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1988 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1989
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1990qXfer:libraries:read:
1991 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1992 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1993 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1994 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1995
483367ee
DJ
1996* Removed targets
1997
1998Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1999
d08950c4
UW
2000alpha*-*-osf1*
2001alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2002d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2003hppa*-*-hiux*
2004i[34567]86-ncr-*
2005i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2006i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2007i[34567]86-*-netware*
2008i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2009i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2010i[34567]86-*-sco*
2011i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2012i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2013i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2014i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2015i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2016i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2017i[34567]86-*-isc*
2018m68*-cisco*-*
2019m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2020mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2021rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2022sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2023
7ce59000
DJ
2024* Other removed features
2025
2026target abug
2027target cpu32bug
2028target est
2029target rom68k
2030
2031 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2032
ea35711c
DJ
2033target hms
2034target e7000
2035target sh3
2036target sh3e
2037
2038 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2039 H8/300.
2040
2041target ocd
2042
2043 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2044 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2045 interfaces.
2046
7ce59000
DJ
2047DWARF 1 support
2048
2049 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2050 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2051
54d61198
DJ
2052Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2053
2054 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2055 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2056 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2057 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2058
ea35711c
DJ
2059MIPS ".pdr" sections
2060
2061 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2062 in debugging information.
2063
2064Scheme support
2065
2066 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2067 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2068
1a69e1e4
DJ
2069set mips stack-arg-size
2070set mips saved-gpreg-size
2071
2072 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2073
6dd09645 2074*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2075
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2076* New targets
2077
2078Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2079Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2080
6aec2e11
DJ
2081* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2082(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2083running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2084
2085* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2086Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2087supported.
2088
17218d91
DJ
2089* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2090broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2091
9ebce043
DJ
2092* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2093stub provides the required support.
2094
7d3d3ece
DJ
2095* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2096longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2097
4f8253f3
JB
2098* New commands
2099
2100set substitute-path
2101unset substitute-path
2102show substitute-path
2103 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2104 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2105 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2106 between compilation and debugging.
2107
9fa66fd7
AS
2108set trace-commands
2109show trace-commands
2110 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2111 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2112 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2113
1f5befc1
DJ
2114* REMOVED features
2115
2116The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2117
2ec3381a
DJ
2118Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2119an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2120
3d00d119
DJ
2121The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2122
be2a5f71
DJ
2123* New remote packets
2124
2125qSupported:
2126 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2127 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2128 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2129 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2130 target.
2131
0876f84a
DJ
2132qXfer:auxv:read:
2133 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2134 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2135
9ebce043
DJ
2136qXfer:memory-map:read:
2137 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2138 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2139
2140vFlashErase:
2141vFlashWrite:
2142vFlashDone:
2143 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2144
0876f84a
DJ
2145* Removed remote packets
2146
2147qPart:auxv:read:
2148 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2149 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2150
e374b601 2151*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2152
96309189
MS
2153* New targets
2154
2155Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2156
2157Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2158
53e5f3cf
AS
2159* New commands
2160
2161init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2162 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2163
ac264b3b
MS
2164The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2165
2166checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2167
2168restart <n> Return the program state to a
2169 previously saved state.
2170
2171info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2172
2173delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2174
2175set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2176 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2177
2178info forks List forks of the user program that
2179 are available to be debugged.
2180
2181fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2182 forks of the user program that are
2183 available to be debugged.
2184
2185delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2186 that are available to be debugged (and
2187 kill the forked process).
2188
2189detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2190 that are available to be debugged (and
2191 allow the process to continue).
2192
3950dc3f
NS
2193* New architecture
2194
2195Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2196
0ea3f30e
DJ
2197* Improved Windows host support
2198
2199GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2200native console support, and remote communications using either
2201network sockets or serial ports.
2202
f79daebb
GM
2203* Improved Modula-2 language support
2204
2205GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2206basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2207pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2208printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2209written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2210GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2211
acab6ab2
MM
2212* REMOVED features
2213
2214The ARM rdi-share module.
2215
f4267320
DJ
2216The Netware NLM debug server.
2217
53e5f3cf 2218*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2219
e0ecbda1
MK
2220* New native configurations
2221
02a677ac 2222OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2223OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2224
d64a6579
KB
2225* New targets
2226
2227Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2228
b33a6190
AS
2229* New command line options
2230
2231--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2232--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2233 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2234--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2235 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2236 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2237 with the --command (-x) option.
2238
11dced61
AC
2239* Deprecated commands removed
2240
2241The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2242removed:
2243
2244 Command Replacement
2245 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2246 othernames set arm disassembler
2247 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2248 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2249 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2250 regs info registers
2251
6fe85783
MK
2252* New BSD user-level threads support
2253
2254It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2255library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2256configurations are:
2257
2258FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2259FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2260OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2261
2262Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2263are not yet supported.
2264
5260ca71
MS
2265* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2266(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2267
e84ecc99
AC
2268* REMOVED configurations and files
2269
2270VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2271Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2272National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2273
31e35378
JB
2274* New "set print array-indexes" command
2275
2276After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2277when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2278behavior.
2279
e85e5c83
MK
2280* VAX floating point support
2281
2282GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2283
d91e9901
AS
2284* User-defined command support
2285
2286In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2287to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2288section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2289
f2cb65ca
MC
2290*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2291
f47b1503
AS
2292* New command line option
2293
2294GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2295debugging.
2296
f2cb65ca
MC
2297* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2298
2299GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2300information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2301by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2302proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2303to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2304
d08c0230
AC
2305* Internationalization
2306
2307When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2308internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2309continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2310
117ea3cf
PH
2311* Ada
2312
2313Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2314implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2315into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2316
d08c0230
AC
2317* New native configurations
2318
2319GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2320
2321* Remote 'p' packet
2322
2323GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2324packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2325
2326* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2327
2328GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2329The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2330features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2331i386 application).
2332
2333GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2334compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2335continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2336configurations:
2337
2338hppa-*-hpux
2339ia64-*-aix
2340mips-*-irix*
2341*-*-lynx
2342mips-*-linux-gnu
2343sds protocol
2344xdr protocol
2345powerpc bdm protocol
2346
2347Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2348made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2349
2350* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2351
2352Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2353been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2354configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2355permanently REMOVED.
2356
2357h8300-*-*
2358mcore-*-*
2359mn10300-*-*
2360ns32k-*-*
2361sh64-*-*
2362v850-*-*
2363
ebb7c577
AC
2364*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2365
2366* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2367
2368When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2369heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2370been fixed.
2371
2372* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2373
2374When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2375fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2376IRIX long double values).
2377
2378* VAX and "next"
2379
2380A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2381command. This problem has been fixed.
2382
860660cb 2383*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2384
0dea2468
AC
2385* Fix for ``many threads''
2386
2387On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2388rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2389error message:
2390
2391 ptrace: No such process.
2392 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2393
2394This problem has been fixed.
2395
2c07db7a
AC
2396* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2397
2398Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2399GDB to dump core).
2400
c23968a2
JB
2401* New ``start'' command.
2402
2403This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2404
71009278
MK
2405* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2406
2407Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2408live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2409platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2410
2411FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2412FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2413NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2414NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2415NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2416OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2417OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2418OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2419OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2420
3c0b7db2
AC
2421* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2422
2423Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2424These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2425of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2426call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2427signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2428
73cc75f3
AC
2429Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2430features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2431include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2432
7243600a
BF
2433* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2434
6f606e1c
MK
2435* New native configurations
2436
97dc871c 2437GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2438OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2439OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2440OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2441OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2442NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2443OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2444
a1b461bf
AC
2445* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2446
2447GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2448The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2449including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2450migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2451compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2452work, was also included.
2453
2454GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2455module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2456
2457h8300-*-*
2458mcore-*-*
2459mn10300-*-*
2460ns32k-*-*
2461sh64-*-*
2462v850-*-*
2463xstormy16-*-*
2464
2465Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2466made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2467
3c7012f5
AC
2468* REMOVED configurations and files
2469
2470Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2471Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2472Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2473Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2474Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2475AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2476Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2477decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2478riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2479sonymips mips-sony-*
2480sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2481
e5fe55f7
AC
2482*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2483
2484* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2485
2486The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2487GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2488command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2489program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2490with GDB".
2491
2492* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2493
2494Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2495libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2496cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2497GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2498shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2499the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2500are created.
2501
2502Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2503
2504* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2505
2506The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2507non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2508compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2509
2510* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2511
2512Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2513wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2514
2515* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2516
2517The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2518permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2519systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2520
2521* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2522
2523Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2524has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2525
2526* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2527
2528GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2529its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2530panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2531
2532* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2533
2534When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2535by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2536not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2537
faae5abe 2538*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2539
9175c9a3
MC
2540* Removed --with-mmalloc
2541
2542Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2543conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2544
3cc87ec0
MK
2545* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2546
2547The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2548the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2549and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2550you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2551
f0424ef6
MK
2552* Revised SPARC target
2553
2554The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2555FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2556support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2557from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2558(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2559
59659be2
ILT
2560* New C++ demangler
2561
2562GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2563names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2564with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2565programs.
2566
9e08b29b
DJ
2567* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2568
2569GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2570arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2571encountered these.
2572
8dfe8985
DC
2573* C++ nested types and namespaces
2574
2575GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2576improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2577is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2578Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2579namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2580"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2581frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2582if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2583GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2584
cced5e27
MK
2585* New native configurations
2586
2587NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2588OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2589OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2590OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2591OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2592
b4b4b794
KI
2593* New debugging protocols
2594
2595M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2596
7989c619
AC
2597* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2598
2599The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2600and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2601tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2602
5994185b
AC
2603* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2604
2605Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2606been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2607configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2608permanently REMOVED.
2609
2610Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2611Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2612Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2613Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2614Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2615AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2616Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2617decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2618riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2619sonymips mips-sony-*
2620sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2621
0ddabb4c
AC
2622* REMOVED configurations and files
2623
2624SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2625SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2626Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2627Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2628H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2629HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2630HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2631HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2632PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2633386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2634Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2635 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2636 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2637SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2638SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2639Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2640Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2641
c7f1390e
DJ
2642*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2643
1fe43d45
AC
2644* Objective-C
2645
2646Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2647integrated into GDB.
2648
e6beb428
AC
2649* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2650
2651DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2652information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2653By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2654backtraces.
2655
2656The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2657have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2658DWARF 2 CFI support.
2659
2660* Hosted file I/O.
2661
2662GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2663file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2664remote protocol documentation for details.
2665
2666* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2667
2668All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2669architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2670to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2671ppc32 on ppc64).
2672
2673* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2674
2675GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2676per-thread variables.
2677
2678* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2679
2680GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2681GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2682
2683* Separate debug info.
2684
2685GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2686automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2687of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2688system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2689and optional debug files.
2690
2691* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2692
2693DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2694describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2695debugger.
2696
2697GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2698for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2699
2700* Java
2701
2702A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2703Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2704considered "useable".
2705
85f8f974
DJ
2706* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2707
2708The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2709commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2710kernel.
2711
0fac0b41
DJ
2712* GDB supports logging output to a file
2713
2714There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2715used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2716
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2717* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2718
2719The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2720disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2721command.
2722
e286caf2 2723* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2724
2725The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2726registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2727
d28f9cdf
DJ
2728* Profiling support
2729
2730A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2731be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2732session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2733"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2734data, for more informative profiling results.
2735
da0f9dcd
AC
2736* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2737
2738The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2739option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2740"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2741
2742Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2743removed.
2744
fb9b6b35
JJ
2745Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2746Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2747Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2748 in a subsequent -var-update.
2749
954a4db8
MK
2750* New native configurations.
2751
2752FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2753
6760f9e6
JB
2754* Multi-arched targets.
2755
b4263afa 2756HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2757Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2758
1b831c93
AC
2759* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2760
2761Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2762been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2763configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2764permanently REMOVED.
2765
8b0e5691 2766Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2767Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2768H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2769HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2770HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2771HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2772PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2773Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2774 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2775 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2776Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2777Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2778
5835abe7
NC
2779* REMOVED configurations and files
2780
2781V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2782Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2783IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2784i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2785i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2786i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2787HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2788 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2789 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2790Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2791Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2792Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2793OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2794I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2795
a094c6fb
AC
2796* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2797
2798The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2799the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2800context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2801address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2802The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2803
299ffc64 2804*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2805
46248966
AC
2806* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2807
2808When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2809`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2810in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2811library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2812shared libs like mad''.
2813
b9d14705 2814* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2815
b9d14705
DJ
2816Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2817the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2818arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2819powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2820
e0e9281e
JB
2821* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2822
2823GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2824and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2825they expand.
2826
dd73b9bb
AC
2827The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2828invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2829
2830The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2831macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2832
e0e9281e
JB
2833Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2834information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2835your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2836information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2837
2250ee0c
CV
2838* Multi-arched targets.
2839
6e3ba3b8
JT
2840DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2841DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2842NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2843National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2844Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2845Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2846
cd9bfe15 2847* New targets.
e33ce519 2848
456f8b9d
DB
2849Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2850
e33ce519 2851
da8ca43d
JT
2852* New native configurations
2853
2854Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2855SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2856MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2857UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2858
cd9bfe15
AC
2859* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2860
2861Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2862been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2863configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2864permanently REMOVED.
2865
92eb23c5 2866Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2867OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2868IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2869Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2870Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2871Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2872i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2873i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2874i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2875HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2876 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2877 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2878I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2879
db034ac5
AC
2880* OBSOLETE languages
2881
2882CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2883
cd9bfe15
AC
2884* REMOVED configurations and files
2885
2886AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2887A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2888AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2889AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2890AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2891
2892testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2893
20f01a46
DH
2894* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2895
2896This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2897commands. The default is 1024.
2898
a5941fbf
MK
2899* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2900
2901Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2902
89743e04
MS
2903* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2904
2905These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2906to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2907from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2908
9fb14e79
JB
2909* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2910
2911The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2912including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2913of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2914
2037aebb
AC
2915*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2916
2917* New targets.
2918
2919Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2920
2921* Bug fixes
2922
2923gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2924mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2925Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2926
2927gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2928dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2929Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2930
2931Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2932Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2933By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2934
2935i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2936avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2937By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2938
37057839 2939*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2940
1a703748
MS
2941* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2942
2943This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2944really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2945In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2946target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2947This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2948(notably embedded) targets.
2949
cefd4ef5
MS
2950* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2951
55241689
AC
2952This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2953process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2954GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2955hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2956
352ed7b4
MS
2957* New command line option
2958
2959GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2960
2961* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2962
2963There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2964command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2965a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2966be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2967open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2968issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2969a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2970it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2971GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2972is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2973
fe419ffc
RE
2974* Changes in ARM configurations.
2975
2976Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2977configuration is fully multi-arch.
2978
eb7cedd9
MK
2979* New native configurations
2980
fe419ffc 2981ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2982x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2983AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2984Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2985
c9f63e6b
CV
2986* New targets
2987
2988Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2989
9b4ff276
AC
2990* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2991
2992Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2993been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2994configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2995permanently REMOVED.
2996
2997AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2998A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2999AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3000AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3001AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3002
b4ceaee6 3003testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3004
e2caac18
AC
3005* REMOVED configurations and files
3006
3007TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3008WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3009PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3010PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3011PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3012Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3013Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3014 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3015SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3016Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3017Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3018ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3019Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3020
c2a727fa
TT
3021* Changes to command line processing
3022
3023The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3024for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3025
467d8519
TT
3026* Changes to key bindings
3027
3028There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3029
7072a954
AC
3030*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3031
3032Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3033
3034Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3035corrupted.
3036
3037Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3038
3039Numerous documentation fixes.
3040
3041Numerous testsuite fixes.
3042
34f47bc4 3043*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3044
3045* New native configurations
3046
3047Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3048x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3049MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3050MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3051ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3052s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3053
bf64bfd6
AC
3054* New targets
3055
def90278 3056Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3057CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3058UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3059
17e78a56 3060* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3061
3062x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3063Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3064Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3065 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3066TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3067WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3068Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3069PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3070PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3071PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3072SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3073Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3074ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3075Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3076
17e78a56
AC
3077stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3078kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3079
7fcca85b
AC
3080Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3081been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3082configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3083permanently REMOVED.
3084
a196c81c 3085* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3086
3087Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3088Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3089Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3090ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3091Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3092ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3093
6d6b80e5 3094* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3095
6d6b80e5 3096GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3097sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3098present.
3099
bf64bfd6
AC
3100* Other news:
3101
e23194cb
EZ
3102* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3103
3104* The MI enabled by default.
3105
3106The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3107revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3108engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3109using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3110which is now deprecated.
3111
3112* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3113
3114GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3115main features are supported:
3116
3117 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3118
3119 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3120 extension;
3121
3122 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3123
3124 - a Pascal expression parser.
3125
3126However, some important features are not yet supported.
3127
3128 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3129
3130 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3131
3132 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3133 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3134
3135 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3136
3137 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3138
3139* Changes in completion.
3140
3141Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3142to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3143users expect at the shell prompt.
3144
3145Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3146`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3147program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3148files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3149be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3150considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3151name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3152
3153`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3154
3155* New platform-independent commands:
3156
3157It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3158hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3159documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3160
3161* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3162
d7275149
MK
3163Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3164revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3165many threads as your system allows you to have.
3166
e23194cb
EZ
3167Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3168
d7275149
MK
3169Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3170multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3171
3172* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3173
3174Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3175
e23194cb
EZ
3176GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3177debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3178supported.)
3179
3180* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3181
3182Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3183breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3184implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3185put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3186and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3187registers.
3188
3189The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3190debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3191watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3192
3193* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3194
3195New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3196the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3197
3198New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3199display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3200IDT.
3201
3202New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3203from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3204New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3205a given linear address.
3206
3207GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3208program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3209which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3210
3211DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3212
6c56c069
EZ
3213It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3214
e23194cb
EZ
3215* Changes in documentation.
3216
3217All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3218Documentation License.
3219
3220Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3221manual.
3222
3223TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3224
3225Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3226manual.
3227
3228The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3229documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3230hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3231
5d6640b1
AC
3232* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3233
3234The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3235``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3236contents of this file.
3237
1a1d8446
AC
3238* gdba.el deleted
3239
3240GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3241
9debab2f 3242*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3243
c63ce875
EZ
3244* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3245
3246Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3247programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3248displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3249greater level of detail.
3250
3251* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3252
3253It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3254bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3255on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3256written.
3257
3258* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3259
3260The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3261necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3262machines ``out of the box''.
3263
3264The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3265possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3266signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3267would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3268interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3269
3270It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3271standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3272even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3273and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3274terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3275
3276The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3277enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3278also works.
3279
3280DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3281GDB.
3282
3283It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3284directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3285times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3286breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3287
ed9a39eb
JM
3288* New native configurations
3289
3290ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3291PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3292
7a292a7a
SS
3293* New targets
3294
96baa820 3295Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3296x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3297PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3298TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3299
085dd6e6
JM
3300* OBSOLETE configurations
3301
3302Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3303Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3304Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3305ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3306Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3307
9debab2f
AC
3308Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3309but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3310these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3311be permanently REMOVED.
3312
5330533d
SS
3313* Gould support removed
3314
3315Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3316
bc9e5bbf
AC
3317* New features for SVR4
3318
3319On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3320without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3321load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3322
3323* Many C++ enhancements
3324
3325C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3326in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3327
adf40b2e
JM
3328* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3329
3330A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3331sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3332with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3333``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3334
3335 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3336 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3337
43e526b9
JM
3338* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3339
3340A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3341expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3342instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3343
3344The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3345added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3346
96baa820
JM
3347* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3348
3349The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3350``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3351include ``set remote P-packet''.
3352
11cf8741
JM
3353* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3354
3355The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3356accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3357``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3358
7876dd43
DB
3359* ``apropos'' command added.
3360
3361The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3362documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3363try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3364
bc9e5bbf
AC
3365* New MI interface
3366
3367A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3368interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3369process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3370"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3371enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3372
3373 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3374
c906108c
SS
3375*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3376
3377* New native configurations
3378
3379HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3380HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3381M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3382
3383* New targets
3384
3385Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3386Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3387Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3388
3389* OBSOLETE configurations
3390
3391Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3392
3393Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3394but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3395these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3396be permanently REMOVED.
3397
3398* ANSI/ISO C
3399
3400As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3401buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3402containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3403use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3404available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3405configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3406information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3407already.
3408
3409* Readline 2.2
3410
3411GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3412
3413* set extension-language
3414
3415You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3416languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3417you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3418 set extension-language .c c++
3419The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3420and their associated languages.
3421
3422* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3423
3424When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3425you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3426PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3427
3428 set processor NAME
3429
3430sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3431following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3432
3433 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3434 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3435 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3436 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3437 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3438 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3439 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3440 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3441 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3442 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3443 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3444
3445At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3446special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3447registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3448only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3449
3450* HP-UX support
3451
3452Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3453more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3454library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3455support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3456for xdb and dbx commands.
3457
3458* Catchpoints
3459
3460HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3461generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3462to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3463
3464This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3465argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3466output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3467
3468* Debugging across forks
3469
3470On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3471in the inferior.
3472
3473* TUI
3474
3475HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3476it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3477configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3478
3479* GDB remote protocol additions
3480
3481A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3482Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3483fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3484allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3485
3486For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3487full 64-bit address. The command
3488
3489 set remoteaddresssize 32
3490
3491can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3492the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3493will be discarded.
3494
3495In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3496command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3497
3498 maint packet heythere
3499
3500sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3501disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3502time.
3503
3504The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3505target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3506downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3507
3508* Tracing can collect general expressions
3509
3510You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3511further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3512doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3513
3514* mask-address variable for Mips
3515
3516For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3517a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3518of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3519
3520* Higher serial baud rates
3521
3522GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3523230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3524to achieve all of these rates.)
3525
3526* i960 simulator
3527
3528The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3529builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3530
3531
3532*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3533
3534* New native configurations
3535
3536Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3537Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3538Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3539PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3540PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3541Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3542Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3543
3544* New targets
3545
3546Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3547Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3548Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3549Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3550MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3551MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3552MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3553Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3554Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3555Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3556NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3557
3558* New debugging protocols
3559
3560ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3561M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3562DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3563PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3564PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3565Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3566
3567* DWARF 2
3568
3569All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3570format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3571information.
3572
3573* Java frontend
3574
3575GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3576only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3577
3578* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3579
3580For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3581loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3582locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3583
3584* Live range splitting
3585
3586GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3587range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3588more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3589
3590* Hurd support
3591
3592GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3593updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3594
3595* ARM Thumb support
3596
3597GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3598instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3599instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3600accordingly.
3601
3602* MIPS16 support
3603
3604GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3605instruction set.
3606
3607* Overlay support
3608
3609GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3610linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3611will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3612control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3613additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3614in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3615
3616* info symbol
3617
3618The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3619the symbol at the specified address.
3620
3621* Trace support
3622
3623The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3624asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3625extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3626includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3627file tracepoint.c for more details.
3628
3629* MIPS simulator
3630
3631Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3632by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3633of most MIPS variants.
3634
3635* Sparc simulator
3636
3637Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3638by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3639Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3640
3641* set architecture
3642
3643For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3644basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3645architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3646the possible architectures.
3647
3648*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3649
3650* New native configurations
3651
3652Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3653M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3654PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3655PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3656PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3657RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3658
3659* New targets
3660
3661ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3662I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3663MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3664MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3665PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3666Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3667Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3668
3669* PowerPC simulator
3670
3671The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3672contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3673PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3674basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3675performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3676
3677* Solaris 2.5
3678
3679GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3680
3681* Windows 95/NT native
3682
3683GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3684To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3685which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3686Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3687ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3688
3689* dont-repeat command
3690
3691If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3692command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3693useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3694extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3695
3696* Send break instead of ^C
3697
3698The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3699rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3700GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3701
3702* Remote protocol timeout
3703
3704The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3705that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3706to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3707
3708* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3709
3710By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3711loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3712stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3713when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3714in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3715
3716Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3717/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3718automatically on hpux10.
3719
3720* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3721
3722Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3723
3724* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3725
3726When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3727may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3728the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3729every character. The default value is 1050.
3730
3731* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3732
3733If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3734a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3735replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3736details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3737remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3738to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3739
3740* Speedups for remote debugging
3741
3742GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3743the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3744and more efficient S-record downloading.
3745
3746* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3747
3748GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3749Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3750
3751*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3752
3753* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3754
3755The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3756can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3757
3758* Remote targets use caching
3759
3760Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3761remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3762it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3763debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3764off' turns the the data cache off.
3765
3766* Remote targets may have threads
3767
3768The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3769in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3770gdb/remote.c for details.
3771
3772* NetROM support
3773
3774If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3775support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3776acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3777write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3778support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3779another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3780sequence is something like
3781
3782 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3783 load <prog>
3784 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3785
3786* Macintosh host
3787
3788GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3789may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3790it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3791available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3792device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3793directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3794scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3795mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3796
3797* Autoconf
3798
3799GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3800but does simplify configuration and building.
3801
3802* hpux10
3803
3804GDB now supports hpux10.
3805
3806*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3807
3808* New native configurations
3809
3810x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3811x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3812NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3813Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3814
3815* New targets
3816
3817A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3818HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3819CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3820PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3821WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3822
3823* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3824
3825GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3826possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3827filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3828the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3829if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3830
3831* Arguments to user-defined commands
3832
3833User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3834Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3835trivial example:
3836define adder
3837 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3838
3839To execute the command use:
3840adder 1 2 3
3841
3842Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3843Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3844use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3845
3846* New `if' and `while' commands
3847
3848This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3849commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3850expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3851execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3852terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3853`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3854if the expression is zero.
3855
3856* Fortran source language mode
3857
3858GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3859Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3860variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3861with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3862Fortran compilers.
3863
3864* Better HPUX support
3865
3866Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3867running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3868processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3869for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3870that behavior do the following before running the program:
3871
3872 adb -w a.out
3873 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3874 control-d
3875
3876This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3877To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3878
3879 adb -w a.out
3880 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3881 control-d
3882
3883You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3884the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3885external linkage.
3886
3887GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3888HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3889
3890* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3891
3892You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3893commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3894current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3895"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3896associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3897configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3898
3899* New DOS host serial code
3900
3901This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3902no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3903a PC's serial port.
3904
3905*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3906
3907* New "complete" command
3908
3909This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3910were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3911
3912* Trailing space optional in prompt
3913
3914"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3915allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3916
3917* Breakpoint hit counts
3918
3919"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3920has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3921can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3922to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3923less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3924that breakpoint.
3925
3926* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3927
3928"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3929an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3930arrays actually contain only short strings.
3931
3932* Shared library breakpoints
3933
3934In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3935breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3936
3937* Hardware watchpoints
3938
3939There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3940targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3941
55241689 3942Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3943
3944* Annotations
3945
3946Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3947and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3948
3949* Improved Irix 5 support
3950
3951GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3952
3953* Improved HPPA support
3954
3955GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3956
3957* New native configurations
3958
3959Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3960HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3961Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3962RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3963
3964* New targets
3965
3966OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3967MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3968Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3969
3970* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3971
3972There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3973This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3974
3975* Fixes
3976
3977As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3978and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3979
3980*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3981
3982* Irix 5 is now supported
3983
3984* HPPA support
3985
3986GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3987to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3988GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3989of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3990can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3991
3992
3993*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3994
3995* User visible changes:
3996
3997* Remote Debugging
3998
3999The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4000target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4001debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4002integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4003debugging info for the mips target).
4004
4005* DEC Alpha native support
4006
4007GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4008debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4009work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4010Alpha-specific notes.
4011
4012* Preliminary thread implementation
4013
4014GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4015
4016* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4017
4018This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4019to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4020for details).
4021
4022* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4023
4024This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4025mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4026call methods, ...etc.
4027
4028*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4029
4030 * User visible changes:
4031
4032Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4033supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4034other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4035somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4036
4037Filename completion now works.
4038
4039When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4040arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4041addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4042
4043All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4044vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4045should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4046your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4047to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4048
4049 * DEC alpha support
4050
4051This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4052cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4053
4054
4055*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4056
4057 * Testsuite
4058
4059This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4060The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4061via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4062
4063 * C++ demangling
4064
4065'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4066emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4067Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4068disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4069use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4070
4071 * Simulators
4072
4073GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4074So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4075Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4076
4077 * New targets supported
4078
4079H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4080H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4081SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4082Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4083IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4084
4085Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4086version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4087GO32 memory extender.
4088
4089 * New remote protocols
4090
4091MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4092
4093 * New source languages supported
4094
4095This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4096used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4097into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4098
4099
4100*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4101
4102 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4103
4104GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4105version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4106University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4107compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4108format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4109(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4110
4111Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4112
4113 * Faster and better demangling
4114
4115We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4116demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4117character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4118only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4119This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4120increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4121symbol lookups.
4122
4123`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4124from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4125compiler does not actually implement.
4126
4127 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4128
4129In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4130inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4131recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4132very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4133The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4134circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4135fix.
4136
4137The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4138release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4139
4140 * Improved configure script
4141
4142The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4143you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4144host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4145done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4146
4147We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4148version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4149`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4150The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4151only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4152We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4153
4154 * Documentation improvements
4155
4156There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4157produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4158before submitting changes.
4159
4160The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4161M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4162`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4163you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4164a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4165
4166*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4167We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4168been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4169or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4170`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4171around this problem.
4172
4173 * New features
4174
4175GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4176the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4177`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4178the target program.
4179
4180The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4181how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4182
4183 * New native hosts supported
4184
4185HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4186386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4187
4188 * New targets supported
4189
4190AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4191
4192 * New file formats supported
4193
4194BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4195HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4196
4197 * Major bug fixes
4198
4199Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4200
4201We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4202printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4203
4204We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4205for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4206release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4207
4208You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4209will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4210
4211We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4212for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4213especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4214libraries.
4215
4216The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4217information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4218command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4219any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4220when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4221
4222 * Internal improvements
4223
4224GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4225debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4226
4227GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4228Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4229symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4230contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4231shared code that handles any of them.
4232
4233 * New command line options
4234
4235We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4236
4237 * Mmalloc licensing
4238
4239The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4240General Public License.
4241
4242*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4243
4244 * Host/native/target split
4245
4246GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4247hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4248target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4249local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4250ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4251
4252The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4253GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4254is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4255code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4256any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4257built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4258handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4259
4260GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4261It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4262plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4263
4264 * New hosts supported
4265
4266HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4267386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4268386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4269
4270 * New targets supported
4271
4272Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
427368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4274
4275 * New native hosts supported
4276
4277386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4278 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4279386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4280
4281 * New file formats supported
4282
4283BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4284supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4285format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4286
4287 * New commands
4288
4289`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4290`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4291These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4292
4293`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4294
4295You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4296scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4297prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4298executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4299
4300 * C++ improvements
4301
4302We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4303info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4304symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4305
4306Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4307
4308 * Major bug fixes
4309
4310The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4311fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4312by the compiler.
4313
4314We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4315support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4316
4317John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4318slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4319that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4320purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4321the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4322mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4323
4324Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4325about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4326completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4327we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4328
4329 * AMD 29k support
4330
4331A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4332specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4333calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4334usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4335in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4336
4337We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4338Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4339of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4340resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4341
4342 * Remote interfaces
4343
4344We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4345with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4346message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4347This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4348needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4349breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4350each instruction being stepped through.
4351
4352The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4353registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4354
4355There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4356find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4357Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4358processor with a serial port.
4359
4360 * Configuration
4361
4362Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4363`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4364supported, and what files each one uses.
4365
4366 * Library changes
4367
4368There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4369disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4370Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4371disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4372
4373The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4374Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4375can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4376grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4377
4378 * Documentation
4379
4380The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4381reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4382as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4383encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4384system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4385bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4386
4387And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4388
4389
4390*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4391
4392 * Better support for C++ function names
4393
4394GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4395names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4396(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4397single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4398Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4399
4400GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4401the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4402You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4403lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4404for the list of formats.
4405
4406 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4407
4408Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4409C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4410directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4411can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4412usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4413about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4414this problem.)
4415
4416 * New 'maintenance' command
4417
4418All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4419the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4420can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4421
4422 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4423 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4424 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4425 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4426 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4427 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4428
4429The following commands are new:
4430
4431 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4432 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4433 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4434
4435 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4436
4437We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4438(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4439be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4440read after argv processing.
4441
4442 * New hosts supported
4443
4444Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4445
55241689 4446GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4447
4448We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4449is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4450for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4451masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4452fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4453It costs extra.
4454
4455 * New targets supported
4456
4457Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4458
4459 * More smarts about finding #include files
4460
4461GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4462all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4463greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4464especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4465the one that contains your sources.
4466
4467We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4468breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4469try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4470
4471 * Interesting infernals change
4472
4473GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4474section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4475target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4476stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4477
4478 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4479
4480There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4481 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4482 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4483
4484See the ChangeLog for details.
4485
4486*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4487
4488 * New machines supported (host and target)
4489
4490IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4491
4492SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4493
4494 * New malloc package
4495
4496GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4497Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4498capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4499This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4500pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4501more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4502
4503 * info proc
4504
4505The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4506'help info proc' for details.
4507
4508 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4509
4510The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4511Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4512possible.
4513
4514 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4515
4516Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4517support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4518conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4519environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4520that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4521in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4522
4523 * Cross byte order fixes
4524
4525Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4526targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4527
4528 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4529
4530If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4531system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4532`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4533program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4534called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4535Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4536and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4537the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4538option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4539starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4540
4541You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4542the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4543information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4544slower, but makes future operations faster.
4545
4546The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4547build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4548A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4549use is:
4550
4551 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4552
4553The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4554It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4555shared across multiple host platforms.
4556
4557 * longjmp() handling
4558
4559GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4560siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4561all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4562platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4563
4564 * Solaris 2.0
4565
4566Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4567this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4568reading symbols.
4569
4570 * Bug fixes
4571
4572As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4573People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4574crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4575
4576*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4577
4578 * New machines supported (host and target)
4579
4580SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4581 (except core files)
4582BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4583Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4584
4585 * New machines supported (target)
4586
4587AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4588
4589 * C++ support
4590
4591GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4592The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4593per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4594
4595GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4596`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4597extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4598good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4599will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4600released.
4601
4602 * New features for SVR4
4603
4604GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4605shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4606only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4607
4608The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4609on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4610it prints the address mappings of the process.
4611
4612If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4613bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4614
4615 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4616
4617Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4618now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4619skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4620make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4621same code linked statically.
4622
4623 * New Getopt
4624
4625GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4626version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4627continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4628Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4629added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4630future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4631
4632 * Bugs fixed
4633
4634The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4635Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4636See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4637
4638
4639*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4640
4641 * New machines supported (host and target)
4642
4643Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4644NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4645Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4646
4647 * Almost SCO Unix support
4648
4649We had hoped to support:
4650SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4651(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4652that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4653about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4654
4655 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4656
4657GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4658debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4659is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4660send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4661reqired (if any).
4662
4663 * New Readline
4664
4665GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4666is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4667required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4668
4669 * Bugs fixed
4670
4671The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4672Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4673See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4674
4675 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4676
4677GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4678supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4679symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4680
4681Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4682mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4683debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4684mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4685version 2.
4686
4687Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4688really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4689line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4690variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4691situation somewhat.
4692
4693When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4694However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4695methods.
4696
4697We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4698DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4699encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4700
4701
4702*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4703
4704 * Improved configuration
4705
4706Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4707Porting BFD is simpler.
4708
4709 * Stepping improved
4710
4711The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4712of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4713in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4714function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4715
4716 * Bug fixing
4717
4718Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4719
4720 * New host supported (not target)
4721
4722Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4723
4724
4725*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4726
4727 * Multiple source language support
4728
4729GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4730It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4731and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4732language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4733You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4734`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4735
4736 * GDB and Modula-2
4737
4738GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4739currently under development at the State University of New York at
4740Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4741continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4742
4743Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4744debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4745symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4746
4747There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4748in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4749
4750 * set write on/off
4751
4752GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4753a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4754the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4755by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4756effect immediately.
4757
4758 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4759
4760When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4761shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4762The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4763examining core files.
4764
4765 * set listsize
4766
4767You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4768The default is 10.
4769
4770 * New machines supported (host and target)
4771
4772SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4773Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4774Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4775
4776 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4777
4778IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4779
4780 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4781
4782AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4783AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4784Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4785
4786 * New remote interfaces
4787
4788AMD 29000 Adapt
4789AMD 29000 Minimon
4790
4791
4792*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4793
4794 * New Facilities
4795
4796Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4797
4798Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4799target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4800is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4801remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4802remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4803also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4804using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4805stub on the target system.
4806
4807New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4808
4809GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4810library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4811object file types such as a.out and coff.
4812
4813There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4814refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4815
4816
4817 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4818
4819All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4820by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4821
4822For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4823``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4824Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4825
4826What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4827print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4828will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4829all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4830
4831confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4832 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4833 it is already running. Default is ON.
4834
4835editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4836 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4837 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4838 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4839 Default is ON.
4840
4841history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4842 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4843 or the value of the environment variable
4844 GDBHISTFILE.
4845
4846history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4847 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4848 HISTSIZE.
4849
4850history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4851 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4852 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4853
4854history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4855 history expansion will be performed on
4856 command line input. The default is OFF.
4857
4858radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4859 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4860 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4861
4862height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4863 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4864 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4865 variable TERM.
4866
4867width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4868 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4869 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4870 variable TERM.
4871
4872Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4873``set width'' instead.
4874
4875print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4876 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4877 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4878 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4879
4880print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4881 is OFF.
4882
4883print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4884 "raw" form if off.
4885
4886print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4887 like instructions.
4888
4889print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4890
4891
4892 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4893
4894The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4895new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4896are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4897window.
4898
4899
4900 * Support for Shared Libraries
4901
4902GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4903Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4904before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4905happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4906At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4907from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4908shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4909It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4910
4911sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4912 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4913 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4914
4915info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4916
4917
4918 * Watchpoints
4919
4920A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4921expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4922tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4923quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4924problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4925more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4926
4927watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4928
4929info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4930
4931delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4932disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4933enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4934
4935
4936 * C++ multiple inheritance
4937
4938When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4939for C++ programs.
4940
4941 * C++ exception handling
4942
4943Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4944ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4945the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4946handler's context).
4947
4948catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4949 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4950 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4951
4952info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4953 current stack frame.
4954
4955
4956 * Minor command changes
4957
4958The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4959command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4960is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4961
4962The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4963at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4964frames without printing.
4965
4966 * New directory command
4967
4968'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4969The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4970about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4971with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4972find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4973
4974 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4975
4976For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4977for more details.
4978
4979GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4980two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4981Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4982where the program that you are debugging will run.
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