* regcache.c (regcache_invalidate): New function.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
6dd09645
JB
4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
6* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
8
c9bb8148
DJ
9* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1032-bit or 64-bit register values.
11
0d5de010
DJ
12* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
13
23181151
DJ
14* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
17
e1f48ead
JK
18* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
19 of numbers.
20
123dc839
DJ
21* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
22for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
23only ARM).
24
05a4558a
DJ
25* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
26iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 27
7c963485
PA
28* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
29ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
30has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
31
c9bb8148
DJ
32* New commands
33
34set mem inaccessible-by-default
35show mem inaccessible-by-default
36 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
37 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
38 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
39 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
40 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
41
42set breakpoint auto-hw
43show breakpoint auto-hw
44 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
45 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
46 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
47 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
48 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
49 including "next" and "finish".
50
0e420bd8
JB
51catch exception
52catch exception unhandled
53 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
54
55catch assert
56 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
57
f822c95b
DJ
58set sysroot
59show sysroot
60 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
61 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
62 an alias to "set sysroot".
63
bd372731
MK
64* New native configurations
65
66OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
67
23181151
DJ
68set tdesc filename
69unset tdesc filename
70show tdesc filename
71 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
72 not query the target for its built-in description.
73
c9bb8148
DJ
74* New targets
75
54fe9172 76OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 77MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 78Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 79
6dd09645
JB
80* New remote packets
81
82QPassSignals:
83 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
84 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
85
23181151
DJ
86qXfer:features:read:
87 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
88 features.
6dd09645 89
483367ee
DJ
90* Removed targets
91
92Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
93
7ce59000 94d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
95hppa*-*-hiux*
96i[34567]86-ncr-*
97i[34567]86-*-dgux*
98i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
99i[34567]86-*-netware*
100i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
101i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
102i[34567]86-*-sco*
103i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
104i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
105i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
106i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
107i[34567]86-*-unixware*
108i[34567]86-*-sysv*
109i[34567]86-*-isc*
110m68*-cisco*-*
111m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 112mips*-*-pe
483367ee 113rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 114sh*-*-pe
483367ee 115
7ce59000
DJ
116* Other removed features
117
118target abug
119target cpu32bug
120target est
121target rom68k
122
123 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
124
ea35711c
DJ
125target hms
126target e7000
127target sh3
128target sh3e
129
130 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
131 H8/300.
132
133target ocd
134
135 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
136 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
137 interfaces.
138
7ce59000
DJ
139DWARF 1 support
140
141 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
142 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
143
54d61198
DJ
144Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
145
146 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
147 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
148 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
149 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
150
ea35711c
DJ
151MIPS ".pdr" sections
152
153 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
154 in debugging information.
155
156Scheme support
157
158 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
159 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
160
6dd09645 161*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 162
ca3bf3bd
DJ
163* New targets
164
165Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 166Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 167
6aec2e11
DJ
168* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
169(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
170running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
171
172* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
173Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
174supported.
175
17218d91
DJ
176* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
177broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
178
9ebce043
DJ
179* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
180stub provides the required support.
181
7d3d3ece
DJ
182* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
183longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
184
4f8253f3
JB
185* New commands
186
187set substitute-path
188unset substitute-path
189show substitute-path
190 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
191 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
192 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
193 between compilation and debugging.
194
9fa66fd7
AS
195set trace-commands
196show trace-commands
197 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
198 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
199 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
200
1f5befc1
DJ
201* REMOVED features
202
203The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
204
2ec3381a
DJ
205Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
206an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
207
3d00d119
DJ
208The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
209
be2a5f71
DJ
210* New remote packets
211
212qSupported:
213 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
214 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
215 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
216 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
217 target.
218
0876f84a
DJ
219qXfer:auxv:read:
220 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
221 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
222
9ebce043
DJ
223qXfer:memory-map:read:
224 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
225 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
226
227vFlashErase:
228vFlashWrite:
229vFlashDone:
230 Erase and program a flash memory device.
231
0876f84a
DJ
232* Removed remote packets
233
234qPart:auxv:read:
235 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
236 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
237
e374b601 238*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 239
96309189
MS
240* New targets
241
242Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
243
244Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
245
53e5f3cf
AS
246* New commands
247
248init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
249 only if it doesn't already have a value.
250
ac264b3b
MS
251The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
252
253checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
254
255restart <n> Return the program state to a
256 previously saved state.
257
258info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
259
260delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
261
262set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
263 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
264
265info forks List forks of the user program that
266 are available to be debugged.
267
268fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
269 forks of the user program that are
270 available to be debugged.
271
272delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
273 that are available to be debugged (and
274 kill the forked process).
275
276detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
277 that are available to be debugged (and
278 allow the process to continue).
279
3950dc3f
NS
280* New architecture
281
282Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
283
0ea3f30e
DJ
284* Improved Windows host support
285
286GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
287native console support, and remote communications using either
288network sockets or serial ports.
289
f79daebb
GM
290* Improved Modula-2 language support
291
292GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
293basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
294pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
295printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
296written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
297GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
298
acab6ab2
MM
299* REMOVED features
300
301The ARM rdi-share module.
302
f4267320
DJ
303The Netware NLM debug server.
304
53e5f3cf 305*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 306
e0ecbda1
MK
307* New native configurations
308
02a677ac 309OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
310OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
311
d64a6579
KB
312* New targets
313
314Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
315
b33a6190
AS
316* New command line options
317
318--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
319--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
320 the child (debugged) program exited with.
321--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
322 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
323 specified multiple times and in conjunction
324 with the --command (-x) option.
325
11dced61
AC
326* Deprecated commands removed
327
328The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
329removed:
330
331 Command Replacement
332 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
333 othernames set arm disassembler
334 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
335 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
336 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
337 regs info registers
338
6fe85783
MK
339* New BSD user-level threads support
340
341It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
342library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
343configurations are:
344
345FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
346FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
347OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
348
349Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
350are not yet supported.
351
5260ca71
MS
352* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
353(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
354
e84ecc99
AC
355* REMOVED configurations and files
356
357VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 358Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 359National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 360
31e35378
JB
361* New "set print array-indexes" command
362
363After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
364when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
365behavior.
366
e85e5c83
MK
367* VAX floating point support
368
369GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
370
d91e9901
AS
371* User-defined command support
372
373In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
374to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
375section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
376
f2cb65ca
MC
377*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
378
f47b1503
AS
379* New command line option
380
381GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
382debugging.
383
f2cb65ca
MC
384* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
385
386GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
387information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
388by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
389proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
390to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 391
d08c0230
AC
392* Internationalization
393
394When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
395internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
396continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
397
117ea3cf
PH
398* Ada
399
400Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
401implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
402into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
403
d08c0230
AC
404* New native configurations
405
406GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
407
408* Remote 'p' packet
409
410GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
411packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
412
413* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
414
415GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
416The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
417features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
418i386 application).
419
420GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
421compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
422continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
423configurations:
424
425hppa-*-hpux
426ia64-*-aix
427mips-*-irix*
428*-*-lynx
429mips-*-linux-gnu
430sds protocol
431xdr protocol
432powerpc bdm protocol
433
434Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
435made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
436
437* OBSOLETE configurations and files
438
439Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
440been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
441configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
442permanently REMOVED.
443
444h8300-*-*
445mcore-*-*
446mn10300-*-*
447ns32k-*-*
448sh64-*-*
449v850-*-*
450
ebb7c577
AC
451*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
452
453* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
454
455When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
456heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
457been fixed.
458
459* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
460
461When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
462fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
463IRIX long double values).
464
465* VAX and "next"
466
467A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
468command. This problem has been fixed.
469
860660cb 470*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 471
0dea2468
AC
472* Fix for ``many threads''
473
474On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
475rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
476error message:
477
478 ptrace: No such process.
479 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
480
481This problem has been fixed.
482
2c07db7a
AC
483* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
484
485Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
486GDB to dump core).
487
c23968a2
JB
488* New ``start'' command.
489
490This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
491
71009278
MK
492* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
493
494Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
495live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
496platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
497
498FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
499FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
500NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
501NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
502NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
503OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
504OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
505OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
506OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
507
3c0b7db2
AC
508* Signal trampoline code overhauled
509
510Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
511These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
512of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
513call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
514signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
515
73cc75f3
AC
516Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
517features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
518include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 519
7243600a
BF
520* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
521
6f606e1c
MK
522* New native configurations
523
97dc871c 524GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 525OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
526OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
527OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 528OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 529NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 530OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 531
a1b461bf
AC
532* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
533
534GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
535The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
536including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
537migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
538compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
539work, was also included.
540
541GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
542module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
543
544h8300-*-*
545mcore-*-*
546mn10300-*-*
547ns32k-*-*
548sh64-*-*
549v850-*-*
550xstormy16-*-*
551
552Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
553made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
554
3c7012f5
AC
555* REMOVED configurations and files
556
557Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
558Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
559Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
560Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
561Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
562AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
563Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
564decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
565riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
566sonymips mips-sony-*
567sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
568
e5fe55f7
AC
569*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
570
571* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
572
573The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
574GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
575command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
576program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
577with GDB".
578
579* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
580
581Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
582libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
583cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
584GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
585shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
586the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
587are created.
588
589Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
590
591* Fixed ISO-C build problems
592
593The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
594non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
595compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
596
597* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
598
599Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
600wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
601
602* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
603
604The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
605permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
606systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
607
608* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
609
610Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
611has been updated to use constant array sizes.
612
613* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
614
615GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
616its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
617panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
618
619* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
620
621When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
622by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
623not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
624
faae5abe 625*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 626
9175c9a3
MC
627* Removed --with-mmalloc
628
629Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
630conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
631
3cc87ec0
MK
632* Changes in AMD64 configurations
633
634The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
635the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
636and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
637you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
638
f0424ef6
MK
639* Revised SPARC target
640
641The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
642FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
643support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
644from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
645(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 646
59659be2
ILT
647* New C++ demangler
648
649GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
650names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
651with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
652programs.
653
9e08b29b
DJ
654* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
655
656GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
657arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
658encountered these.
659
8dfe8985
DC
660* C++ nested types and namespaces
661
662GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
663improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
664is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
665Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
666namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
667"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
668frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
669if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
670GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
671
cced5e27
MK
672* New native configurations
673
674NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 675OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 676OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
677OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
678OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 679
b4b4b794
KI
680* New debugging protocols
681
682M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
683
7989c619
AC
684* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
685
686The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
687and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
688tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
689
5994185b
AC
690* OBSOLETE configurations and files
691
692Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
693been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
694configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
695permanently REMOVED.
696
697Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
698Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
699Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
700Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
701Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
702AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
703Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
704decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
705riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
706sonymips mips-sony-*
707sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 708
0ddabb4c
AC
709* REMOVED configurations and files
710
711SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
712SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
713Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
714Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
715H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
716HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
717HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
718HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
719PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 720386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
721Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
722 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
723 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
724SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
725SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
726Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
727Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 728
c7f1390e
DJ
729*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
730
1fe43d45
AC
731* Objective-C
732
733Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
734integrated into GDB.
735
e6beb428
AC
736* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
737
738DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
739information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
740By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
741backtraces.
742
743The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
744have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
745DWARF 2 CFI support.
746
747* Hosted file I/O.
748
749GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
750file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
751remote protocol documentation for details.
752
753* All targets using the new architecture framework.
754
755All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
756architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
757to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
758ppc32 on ppc64).
759
760* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
761
762GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
763per-thread variables.
764
765* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
766
767GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
768GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
769
770* Separate debug info.
771
772GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
773automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
774of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
775system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
776and optional debug files.
777
778* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
779
780DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
781describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
782debugger.
783
784GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
785for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
786
787* Java
788
789A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
790Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
791considered "useable".
792
85f8f974
DJ
793* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
794
795The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
796commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
797kernel.
798
0fac0b41
DJ
799* GDB supports logging output to a file
800
801There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
802used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 803
6ad8ae5c
DJ
804* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
805
806The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
807disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
808command.
809
e286caf2 810* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
811
812The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
813registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
814
d28f9cdf
DJ
815* Profiling support
816
817A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
818be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
819session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
820"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
821data, for more informative profiling results.
822
da0f9dcd
AC
823* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
824
825The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
826option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 827"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
828
829Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
830removed.
831
fb9b6b35
JJ
832Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
833Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
834Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
835 in a subsequent -var-update.
836
954a4db8
MK
837* New native configurations.
838
839FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
840
6760f9e6
JB
841* Multi-arched targets.
842
b4263afa 843HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 844Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 845
1b831c93
AC
846* OBSOLETE configurations and files
847
848Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
849been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
850configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
851permanently REMOVED.
852
8b0e5691 853Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 854Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 855H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
856HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
857HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
858HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 859PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
860Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
861 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
862 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
863Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
864Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 865
5835abe7
NC
866* REMOVED configurations and files
867
868V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
869Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
870IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
871i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
872i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
873i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
874HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
875 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
876 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
877Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
878Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
879Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
880OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
881I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 882
a094c6fb
AC
883* MIPS $fp behavior changed
884
885The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
886the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
887context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
888address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
889The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
890
299ffc64 891*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 892
46248966
AC
893* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
894
895When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
896`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
897in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
898library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
899shared libs like mad''.
900
b9d14705 901* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 902
b9d14705
DJ
903Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
904the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
905arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
906powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 907
e0e9281e
JB
908* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
909
910GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
911and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
912they expand.
913
dd73b9bb
AC
914The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
915invocations in expression, and shows the result.
916
917The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
918macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
919
e0e9281e
JB
920Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
921information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
922your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
923information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
924
2250ee0c
CV
925* Multi-arched targets.
926
6e3ba3b8
JT
927DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
928DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 929NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 930National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
931Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
932Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 933
cd9bfe15 934* New targets.
e33ce519 935
456f8b9d
DB
936Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
937
e33ce519 938
da8ca43d
JT
939* New native configurations
940
941Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 942SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 943MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 944UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 945
cd9bfe15
AC
946* OBSOLETE configurations and files
947
948Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
949been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
950configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
951permanently REMOVED.
952
92eb23c5 953Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 954OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 955IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 956Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 957Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 958Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
959i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
960i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
961i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
962HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
963 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
964 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 965I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 966
db034ac5
AC
967* OBSOLETE languages
968
969CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
970
cd9bfe15
AC
971* REMOVED configurations and files
972
973AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
974A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
975AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
976AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
977AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
978
979testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
980
20f01a46
DH
981* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
982
983This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
984commands. The default is 1024.
985
a5941fbf
MK
986* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
987
988Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
989
89743e04
MS
990* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
991
992These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
993to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
994from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 995
9fb14e79
JB
996* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
997
998The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
999including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1000of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1001
2037aebb
AC
1002*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1003
1004* New targets.
1005
1006Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1007
1008* Bug fixes
1009
1010gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1011mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1012Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1013
1014gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1015dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1016Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1017
1018Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1019Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1020By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1021
1022i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1023avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1024By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1025
37057839 1026*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1027
1a703748
MS
1028* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1029
1030This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1031really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1032In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1033target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1034This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1035(notably embedded) targets.
1036
cefd4ef5
MS
1037* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1038
55241689
AC
1039This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1040process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1041GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1042hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1043
352ed7b4
MS
1044* New command line option
1045
1046GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1047
1048* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1049
1050There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1051command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1052a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1053be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1054open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1055issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1056a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1057it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1058GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1059is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1060
fe419ffc
RE
1061* Changes in ARM configurations.
1062
1063Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1064configuration is fully multi-arch.
1065
eb7cedd9
MK
1066* New native configurations
1067
fe419ffc 1068ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1069x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1070AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1071Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1072
c9f63e6b
CV
1073* New targets
1074
1075Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1076
9b4ff276
AC
1077* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1078
1079Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1080been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1081configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1082permanently REMOVED.
1083
1084AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1085A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1086AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1087AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1088AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1089
b4ceaee6 1090testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1091
e2caac18
AC
1092* REMOVED configurations and files
1093
1094TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1095WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1096PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1097PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1098PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1099Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1100Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1101 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1102SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1103Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1104Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1105ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1106Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1107
c2a727fa
TT
1108* Changes to command line processing
1109
1110The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1111for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1112
467d8519
TT
1113* Changes to key bindings
1114
1115There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1116
7072a954
AC
1117*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1118
1119Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1120
1121Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1122corrupted.
1123
1124Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1125
1126Numerous documentation fixes.
1127
1128Numerous testsuite fixes.
1129
34f47bc4 1130*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1131
1132* New native configurations
1133
1134Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1135x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1136MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1137MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1138ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1139s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1140
bf64bfd6
AC
1141* New targets
1142
def90278 1143Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1144CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1145UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1146
17e78a56 1147* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1148
1149x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1150Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1151Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1152 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1153TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1154WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1155Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1156PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1157PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1158PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1159SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1160Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1161ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1162Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1163
17e78a56
AC
1164stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1165kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1166
7fcca85b
AC
1167Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1168been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1169configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1170permanently REMOVED.
1171
a196c81c 1172* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1173
1174Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1175Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1176Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1177ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1178Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1179ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1180
6d6b80e5 1181* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1182
6d6b80e5 1183GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1184sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1185present.
1186
bf64bfd6
AC
1187* Other news:
1188
e23194cb
EZ
1189* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1190
1191* The MI enabled by default.
1192
1193The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1194revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1195engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1196using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1197which is now deprecated.
1198
1199* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1200
1201GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1202main features are supported:
1203
1204 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1205
1206 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1207 extension;
1208
1209 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1210
1211 - a Pascal expression parser.
1212
1213However, some important features are not yet supported.
1214
1215 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1216
1217 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1218
1219 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1220 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1221
1222 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1223
1224 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1225
1226* Changes in completion.
1227
1228Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1229to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1230users expect at the shell prompt.
1231
1232Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1233`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1234program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1235files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1236be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1237considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1238name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1239
1240`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1241
1242* New platform-independent commands:
1243
1244It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1245hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1246documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1247
1248* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1249
d7275149
MK
1250Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1251revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1252many threads as your system allows you to have.
1253
e23194cb
EZ
1254Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1255
d7275149
MK
1256Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1257multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1258
1259* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1260
1261Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1262
e23194cb
EZ
1263GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1264debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1265supported.)
1266
1267* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1268
1269Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1270breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1271implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1272put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1273and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1274registers.
1275
1276The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1277debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1278watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1279
1280* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1281
1282New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1283the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1284
1285New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1286display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1287IDT.
1288
1289New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1290from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1291New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1292a given linear address.
1293
1294GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1295program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1296which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1297
1298DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1299
6c56c069
EZ
1300It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1301
e23194cb
EZ
1302* Changes in documentation.
1303
1304All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1305Documentation License.
1306
1307Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1308manual.
1309
1310TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1311
1312Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1313manual.
1314
1315The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1316documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1317hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1318
5d6640b1
AC
1319* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1320
1321The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1322``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1323contents of this file.
1324
1a1d8446
AC
1325* gdba.el deleted
1326
1327GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1328
9debab2f 1329*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1330
c63ce875
EZ
1331* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1332
1333Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1334programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1335displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1336greater level of detail.
1337
1338* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1339
1340It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1341bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1342on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1343written.
1344
1345* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1346
1347The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1348necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1349machines ``out of the box''.
1350
1351The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1352possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1353signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1354would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1355interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1356
1357It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1358standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1359even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1360and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1361terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1362
1363The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1364enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1365also works.
1366
1367DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1368GDB.
1369
1370It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1371directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1372times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1373breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1374
ed9a39eb
JM
1375* New native configurations
1376
1377ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1378PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1379
7a292a7a
SS
1380* New targets
1381
96baa820 1382Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1383x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1384PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1385TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1386
085dd6e6
JM
1387* OBSOLETE configurations
1388
1389Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1390Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1391Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1392ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1393Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1394
9debab2f
AC
1395Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1396but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1397these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1398be permanently REMOVED.
1399
5330533d
SS
1400* Gould support removed
1401
1402Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1403
bc9e5bbf
AC
1404* New features for SVR4
1405
1406On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1407without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1408load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1409
1410* Many C++ enhancements
1411
1412C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1413in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1414
adf40b2e
JM
1415* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1416
1417A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1418sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1419with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1420``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1421
1422 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1423 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1424
43e526b9
JM
1425* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1426
1427A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1428expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1429instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1430
1431The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1432added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1433
96baa820
JM
1434* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1435
1436The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1437``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1438include ``set remote P-packet''.
1439
11cf8741
JM
1440* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1441
1442The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1443accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1444``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1445
7876dd43
DB
1446* ``apropos'' command added.
1447
1448The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1449documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1450try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1451
bc9e5bbf
AC
1452* New MI interface
1453
1454A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1455interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1456process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1457"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1458enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1459
1460 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1461
c906108c
SS
1462*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1463
1464* New native configurations
1465
1466HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1467HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1468M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1469
1470* New targets
1471
1472Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1473Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1474Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1475
1476* OBSOLETE configurations
1477
1478Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1479
1480Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1481but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1482these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1483be permanently REMOVED.
1484
1485* ANSI/ISO C
1486
1487As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1488buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1489containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1490use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1491available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1492configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1493information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1494already.
1495
1496* Readline 2.2
1497
1498GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1499
1500* set extension-language
1501
1502You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1503languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1504you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1505 set extension-language .c c++
1506The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1507and their associated languages.
1508
1509* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1510
1511When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1512you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1513PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1514
1515 set processor NAME
1516
1517sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1518following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1519
1520 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1521 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1522 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1523 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1524 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1525 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1526 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1527 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1528 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1529 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1530 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1531
1532At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1533special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1534registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1535only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1536
1537* HP-UX support
1538
1539Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1540more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1541library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1542support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1543for xdb and dbx commands.
1544
1545* Catchpoints
1546
1547HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1548generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1549to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1550
1551This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1552argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1553output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1554
1555* Debugging across forks
1556
1557On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1558in the inferior.
1559
1560* TUI
1561
1562HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1563it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1564configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1565
1566* GDB remote protocol additions
1567
1568A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1569Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1570fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1571allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1572
1573For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1574full 64-bit address. The command
1575
1576 set remoteaddresssize 32
1577
1578can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1579the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1580will be discarded.
1581
1582In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1583command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1584
1585 maint packet heythere
1586
1587sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1588disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1589time.
1590
1591The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1592target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1593downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1594
1595* Tracing can collect general expressions
1596
1597You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1598further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1599doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1600
1601* mask-address variable for Mips
1602
1603For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1604a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1605of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1606
1607* Higher serial baud rates
1608
1609GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1610230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1611to achieve all of these rates.)
1612
1613* i960 simulator
1614
1615The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1616builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1617
1618
1619*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1620
1621* New native configurations
1622
1623Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1624Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1625Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1626PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1627PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1628Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1629Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1630
1631* New targets
1632
1633Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1634Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1635Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1636Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1637MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1638MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1639MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1640Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1641Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1642Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1643NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1644
1645* New debugging protocols
1646
1647ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1648M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1649DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1650PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1651PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1652Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1653
1654* DWARF 2
1655
1656All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1657format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1658information.
1659
1660* Java frontend
1661
1662GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1663only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1664
1665* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1666
1667For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1668loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1669locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1670
1671* Live range splitting
1672
1673GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1674range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1675more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1676
1677* Hurd support
1678
1679GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1680updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1681
1682* ARM Thumb support
1683
1684GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1685instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1686instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1687accordingly.
1688
1689* MIPS16 support
1690
1691GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1692instruction set.
1693
1694* Overlay support
1695
1696GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1697linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1698will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1699control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1700additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1701in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1702
1703* info symbol
1704
1705The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1706the symbol at the specified address.
1707
1708* Trace support
1709
1710The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1711asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1712extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1713includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1714file tracepoint.c for more details.
1715
1716* MIPS simulator
1717
1718Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1719by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1720of most MIPS variants.
1721
1722* Sparc simulator
1723
1724Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1725by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1726Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1727
1728* set architecture
1729
1730For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1731basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1732architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1733the possible architectures.
1734
1735*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1736
1737* New native configurations
1738
1739Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1740M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1741PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1742PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1743PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1744RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1745
1746* New targets
1747
1748ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1749I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1750MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1751MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1752PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1753Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1754Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1755
1756* PowerPC simulator
1757
1758The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1759contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1760PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1761basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1762performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1763
1764* Solaris 2.5
1765
1766GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1767
1768* Windows 95/NT native
1769
1770GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1771To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1772which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1773Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1774ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1775
1776* dont-repeat command
1777
1778If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1779command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1780useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1781extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1782
1783* Send break instead of ^C
1784
1785The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1786rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1787GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1788
1789* Remote protocol timeout
1790
1791The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1792that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1793to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1794
1795* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1796
1797By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1798loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1799stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1800when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1801in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1802
1803Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1804/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1805automatically on hpux10.
1806
1807* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1808
1809Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1810
1811* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1812
1813When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1814may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1815the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1816every character. The default value is 1050.
1817
1818* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1819
1820If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1821a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1822replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1823details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1824remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1825to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1826
1827* Speedups for remote debugging
1828
1829GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1830the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1831and more efficient S-record downloading.
1832
1833* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1834
1835GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1836Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1837
1838*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1839
1840* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1841
1842The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1843can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1844
1845* Remote targets use caching
1846
1847Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1848remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1849it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1850debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1851off' turns the the data cache off.
1852
1853* Remote targets may have threads
1854
1855The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1856in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1857gdb/remote.c for details.
1858
1859* NetROM support
1860
1861If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1862support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1863acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1864write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1865support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1866another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1867sequence is something like
1868
1869 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1870 load <prog>
1871 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1872
1873* Macintosh host
1874
1875GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1876may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1877it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1878available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1879device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1880directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1881scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1882mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1883
1884* Autoconf
1885
1886GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1887but does simplify configuration and building.
1888
1889* hpux10
1890
1891GDB now supports hpux10.
1892
1893*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1894
1895* New native configurations
1896
1897x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1898x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1899NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1900Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1901
1902* New targets
1903
1904A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1905HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1906CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1907PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1908WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1909
1910* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1911
1912GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1913possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1914filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1915the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1916if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1917
1918* Arguments to user-defined commands
1919
1920User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1921Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1922trivial example:
1923define adder
1924 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1925
1926To execute the command use:
1927adder 1 2 3
1928
1929Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1930Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1931use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1932
1933* New `if' and `while' commands
1934
1935This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1936commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1937expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1938execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1939terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1940`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1941if the expression is zero.
1942
1943* Fortran source language mode
1944
1945GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1946Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1947variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1948with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1949Fortran compilers.
1950
1951* Better HPUX support
1952
1953Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1954running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1955processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1956for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1957that behavior do the following before running the program:
1958
1959 adb -w a.out
1960 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1961 control-d
1962
1963This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1964To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1965
1966 adb -w a.out
1967 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1968 control-d
1969
1970You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1971the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1972external linkage.
1973
1974GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1975HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1976
1977* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1978
1979You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1980commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1981current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1982"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1983associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1984configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1985
1986* New DOS host serial code
1987
1988This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1989no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1990a PC's serial port.
1991
1992*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1993
1994* New "complete" command
1995
1996This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1997were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1998
1999* Trailing space optional in prompt
2000
2001"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2002allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2003
2004* Breakpoint hit counts
2005
2006"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2007has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2008can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2009to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2010less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2011that breakpoint.
2012
2013* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2014
2015"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2016an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2017arrays actually contain only short strings.
2018
2019* Shared library breakpoints
2020
2021In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2022breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2023
2024* Hardware watchpoints
2025
2026There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2027targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2028
55241689 2029Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2030
2031* Annotations
2032
2033Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2034and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2035
2036* Improved Irix 5 support
2037
2038GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2039
2040* Improved HPPA support
2041
2042GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2043
2044* New native configurations
2045
2046Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2047HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2048Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2049RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2050
2051* New targets
2052
2053OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2054MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2055Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2056
2057* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2058
2059There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2060This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2061
2062* Fixes
2063
2064As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2065and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2066
2067*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2068
2069* Irix 5 is now supported
2070
2071* HPPA support
2072
2073GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2074to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2075GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2076of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2077can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2078
2079
2080*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2081
2082* User visible changes:
2083
2084* Remote Debugging
2085
2086The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2087target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2088debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2089integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2090debugging info for the mips target).
2091
2092* DEC Alpha native support
2093
2094GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2095debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2096work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2097Alpha-specific notes.
2098
2099* Preliminary thread implementation
2100
2101GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2102
2103* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2104
2105This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2106to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2107for details).
2108
2109* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2110
2111This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2112mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2113call methods, ...etc.
2114
2115*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2116
2117 * User visible changes:
2118
2119Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2120supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2121other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2122somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2123
2124Filename completion now works.
2125
2126When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2127arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2128addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2129
2130All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2131vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2132should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2133your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2134to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2135
2136 * DEC alpha support
2137
2138This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2139cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2140
2141
2142*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2143
2144 * Testsuite
2145
2146This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2147The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2148via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2149
2150 * C++ demangling
2151
2152'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2153emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2154Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2155disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2156use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2157
2158 * Simulators
2159
2160GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2161So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2162Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2163
2164 * New targets supported
2165
2166H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2167H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2168SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2169Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2170IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2171
2172Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2173version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2174GO32 memory extender.
2175
2176 * New remote protocols
2177
2178MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2179
2180 * New source languages supported
2181
2182This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2183used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2184into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2185
2186
2187*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2188
2189 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2190
2191GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2192version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2193University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2194compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2195format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2196(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2197
2198Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2199
2200 * Faster and better demangling
2201
2202We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2203demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2204character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2205only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2206This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2207increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2208symbol lookups.
2209
2210`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2211from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2212compiler does not actually implement.
2213
2214 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2215
2216In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2217inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2218recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2219very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2220The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2221circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2222fix.
2223
2224The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2225release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2226
2227 * Improved configure script
2228
2229The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2230you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2231host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2232done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2233
2234We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2235version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2236`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2237The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2238only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2239We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2240
2241 * Documentation improvements
2242
2243There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2244produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2245before submitting changes.
2246
2247The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2248M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2249`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2250you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2251a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2252
2253*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2254We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2255been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2256or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2257`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2258around this problem.
2259
2260 * New features
2261
2262GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2263the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2264`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2265the target program.
2266
2267The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2268how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2269
2270 * New native hosts supported
2271
2272HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2273386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2274
2275 * New targets supported
2276
2277AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2278
2279 * New file formats supported
2280
2281BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2282HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2283
2284 * Major bug fixes
2285
2286Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2287
2288We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2289printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2290
2291We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2292for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2293release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2294
2295You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2296will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2297
2298We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2299for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2300especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2301libraries.
2302
2303The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2304information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2305command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2306any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2307when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2308
2309 * Internal improvements
2310
2311GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2312debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2313
2314GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2315Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2316symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2317contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2318shared code that handles any of them.
2319
2320 * New command line options
2321
2322We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2323
2324 * Mmalloc licensing
2325
2326The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2327General Public License.
2328
2329*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2330
2331 * Host/native/target split
2332
2333GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2334hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2335target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2336local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2337ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2338
2339The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2340GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2341is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2342code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2343any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2344built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2345handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2346
2347GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2348It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2349plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2350
2351 * New hosts supported
2352
2353HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2354386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2355386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2356
2357 * New targets supported
2358
2359Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
236068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2361
2362 * New native hosts supported
2363
2364386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2365 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2366386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2367
2368 * New file formats supported
2369
2370BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2371supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2372format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2373
2374 * New commands
2375
2376`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2377`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2378These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2379
2380`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2381
2382You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2383scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2384prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2385executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2386
2387 * C++ improvements
2388
2389We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2390info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2391symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2392
2393Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2394
2395 * Major bug fixes
2396
2397The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2398fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2399by the compiler.
2400
2401We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2402support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2403
2404John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2405slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2406that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2407purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2408the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2409mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2410
2411Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2412about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2413completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2414we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2415
2416 * AMD 29k support
2417
2418A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2419specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2420calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2421usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2422in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2423
2424We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2425Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2426of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2427resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2428
2429 * Remote interfaces
2430
2431We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2432with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2433message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2434This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2435needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2436breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2437each instruction being stepped through.
2438
2439The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2440registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2441
2442There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2443find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2444Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2445processor with a serial port.
2446
2447 * Configuration
2448
2449Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2450`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2451supported, and what files each one uses.
2452
2453 * Library changes
2454
2455There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2456disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2457Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2458disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2459
2460The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2461Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2462can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2463grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2464
2465 * Documentation
2466
2467The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2468reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2469as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2470encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2471system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2472bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2473
2474And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2475
2476
2477*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2478
2479 * Better support for C++ function names
2480
2481GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2482names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2483(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2484single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2485Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2486
2487GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2488the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2489You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2490lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2491for the list of formats.
2492
2493 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2494
2495Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2496C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2497directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2498can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2499usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2500about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2501this problem.)
2502
2503 * New 'maintenance' command
2504
2505All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2506the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2507can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2508
2509 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2510 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2511 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2512 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2513 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2514 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2515
2516The following commands are new:
2517
2518 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2519 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2520 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2521
2522 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2523
2524We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2525(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2526be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2527read after argv processing.
2528
2529 * New hosts supported
2530
2531Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2532
55241689 2533GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2534
2535We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2536is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2537for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2538masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2539fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2540It costs extra.
2541
2542 * New targets supported
2543
2544Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2545
2546 * More smarts about finding #include files
2547
2548GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2549all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2550greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2551especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2552the one that contains your sources.
2553
2554We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2555breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2556try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2557
2558 * Interesting infernals change
2559
2560GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2561section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2562target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2563stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2564
2565 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2566
2567There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2568 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2569 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2570
2571See the ChangeLog for details.
2572
2573*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2574
2575 * New machines supported (host and target)
2576
2577IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2578
2579SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2580
2581 * New malloc package
2582
2583GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2584Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2585capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2586This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2587pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2588more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2589
2590 * info proc
2591
2592The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2593'help info proc' for details.
2594
2595 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2596
2597The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2598Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2599possible.
2600
2601 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2602
2603Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2604support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2605conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2606environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2607that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2608in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2609
2610 * Cross byte order fixes
2611
2612Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2613targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2614
2615 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2616
2617If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2618system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2619`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2620program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2621called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2622Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2623and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2624the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2625option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2626starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2627
2628You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2629the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2630information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2631slower, but makes future operations faster.
2632
2633The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2634build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2635A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2636use is:
2637
2638 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2639
2640The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2641It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2642shared across multiple host platforms.
2643
2644 * longjmp() handling
2645
2646GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2647siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2648all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2649platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2650
2651 * Solaris 2.0
2652
2653Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2654this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2655reading symbols.
2656
2657 * Bug fixes
2658
2659As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2660People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2661crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2662
2663*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2664
2665 * New machines supported (host and target)
2666
2667SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2668 (except core files)
2669BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2670Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2671
2672 * New machines supported (target)
2673
2674AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2675
2676 * C++ support
2677
2678GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2679The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2680per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2681
2682GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2683`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2684extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2685good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2686will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2687released.
2688
2689 * New features for SVR4
2690
2691GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2692shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2693only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2694
2695The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2696on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2697it prints the address mappings of the process.
2698
2699If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2700bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2701
2702 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2703
2704Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2705now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2706skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2707make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2708same code linked statically.
2709
2710 * New Getopt
2711
2712GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2713version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2714continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2715Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2716added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2717future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2718
2719 * Bugs fixed
2720
2721The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2722Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2723See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2724
2725
2726*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2727
2728 * New machines supported (host and target)
2729
2730Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2731NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2732Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2733
2734 * Almost SCO Unix support
2735
2736We had hoped to support:
2737SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2738(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2739that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2740about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2741
2742 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2743
2744GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2745debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2746is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2747send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2748reqired (if any).
2749
2750 * New Readline
2751
2752GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2753is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2754required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2755
2756 * Bugs fixed
2757
2758The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2759Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2760See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2761
2762 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2763
2764GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2765supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2766symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2767
2768Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2769mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2770debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2771mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2772version 2.
2773
2774Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2775really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2776line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2777variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2778situation somewhat.
2779
2780When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2781However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2782methods.
2783
2784We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2785DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2786encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2787
2788
2789*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2790
2791 * Improved configuration
2792
2793Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2794Porting BFD is simpler.
2795
2796 * Stepping improved
2797
2798The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2799of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2800in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2801function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2802
2803 * Bug fixing
2804
2805Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2806
2807 * New host supported (not target)
2808
2809Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2810
2811
2812*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2813
2814 * Multiple source language support
2815
2816GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2817It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2818and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2819language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2820You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2821`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2822
2823 * GDB and Modula-2
2824
2825GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2826currently under development at the State University of New York at
2827Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2828continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2829
2830Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2831debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2832symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2833
2834There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2835in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2836
2837 * set write on/off
2838
2839GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2840a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2841the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2842by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2843effect immediately.
2844
2845 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2846
2847When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2848shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2849The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2850examining core files.
2851
2852 * set listsize
2853
2854You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2855The default is 10.
2856
2857 * New machines supported (host and target)
2858
2859SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2860Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2861Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2862
2863 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2864
2865IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2866
2867 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2868
2869AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2870AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2871Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2872
2873 * New remote interfaces
2874
2875AMD 29000 Adapt
2876AMD 29000 Minimon
2877
2878
2879*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2880
2881 * New Facilities
2882
2883Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2884
2885Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2886target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2887is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2888remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2889remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2890also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2891using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2892stub on the target system.
2893
2894New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2895
2896GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2897library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2898object file types such as a.out and coff.
2899
2900There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2901refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2902
2903
2904 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2905
2906All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2907by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2908
2909For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2910``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2911Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2912
2913What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2914print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2915will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2916all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2917
2918confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2919 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2920 it is already running. Default is ON.
2921
2922editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2923 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2924 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2925 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2926 Default is ON.
2927
2928history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2929 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2930 or the value of the environment variable
2931 GDBHISTFILE.
2932
2933history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2934 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2935 HISTSIZE.
2936
2937history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2938 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2939 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2940
2941history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2942 history expansion will be performed on
2943 command line input. The default is OFF.
2944
2945radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2946 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2947 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2948
2949height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2950 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2951 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2952 variable TERM.
2953
2954width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2955 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2956 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2957 variable TERM.
2958
2959Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2960``set width'' instead.
2961
2962print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2963 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2964 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2965 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2966
2967print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2968 is OFF.
2969
2970print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2971 "raw" form if off.
2972
2973print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2974 like instructions.
2975
2976print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2977
2978
2979 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2980
2981The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2982new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2983are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2984window.
2985
2986
2987 * Support for Shared Libraries
2988
2989GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2990Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2991before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2992happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2993At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2994from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2995shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2996It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2997
2998sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2999 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3000 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3001
3002info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3003
3004
3005 * Watchpoints
3006
3007A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3008expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3009tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3010quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3011problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3012more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3013
3014watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3015
3016info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3017
3018delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3019disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3020enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3021
3022
3023 * C++ multiple inheritance
3024
3025When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3026for C++ programs.
3027
3028 * C++ exception handling
3029
3030Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3031ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3032the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3033handler's context).
3034
3035catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3036 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3037 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3038
3039info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3040 current stack frame.
3041
3042
3043 * Minor command changes
3044
3045The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3046command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3047is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3048
3049The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3050at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3051frames without printing.
3052
3053 * New directory command
3054
3055'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3056The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3057about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3058with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3059find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3060
3061 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3062
3063For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3064for more details.
3065
3066GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3067two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3068Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3069where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.58395 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.