Implementing catch syscall.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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6* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
7dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
8them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
9for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
10"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
11
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12* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
13breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
14or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
15the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
16for tracepoint actions.
17
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18* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
19in hex as well as in symbolic form."
20
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21* Process record and replay
22
23 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
24 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
25 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
26 execute commands.
27
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28* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
29step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
30set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
31reverse execution.
32
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33* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
34feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
352.6.28 or later.
36
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37* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
38target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
39char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
40literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
41U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
42`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
43system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
44the installation instructions for more information.
45
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46* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
47remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
48with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
49the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
50
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51* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
52and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
53
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54* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
55now complete on file names.
56
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57* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
58completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
59For instance, consider:
60
61 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
62 # struct example variable;
63 (gdb) p variable.
64
65If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
66completions will be "f1" and "f2".
67
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68* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
69the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
70
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71* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
72operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
73macros.
74
47a3467a 75* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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76the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
77implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
78
79* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
80registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
81can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
82and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 83
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84* New remote packets
85
86qSearch:memory:
87 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
88
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89QStartNoAckMode
90 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
91 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
92 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
93
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94vKill
95 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
96 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
97
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98qXfer:osdata:read
99 Obtains additional operating system information
100
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101qXfer:siginfo:read
102qXfer:siginfo:write
103 Read or write additional signal information.
104
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105* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
106
107 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
108 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
109 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
110
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111* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
112source+assembly.
113
c055b101 114* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 115DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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116
117* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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118and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
119`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 120
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121* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
122with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
123
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124* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
125
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126* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
127
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128* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
129which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
130
1fddbabb 131* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 132list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 133
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134* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
135conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
136have also been fixed.
137
bfb8797a 138* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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139From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
140are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 141
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142* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
143example, given:
144
145 template<typename T> class C { };
146 C<char const *> c;
147
148GDB will now correctly handle all of:
149
150 ptype C<char const *>
151 ptype C<char const*>
152 ptype C<const char *>
153 ptype C<const char*>
154
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155* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
156
157 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
158 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
159
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160 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
161 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
162 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
163
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164 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
165 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
166
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167 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
168 gdbserver.
169
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170 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
171 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
172
173 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
174 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
175 as appropriate.
176
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177* Python scripting
178
179 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
180 available is determined at configure time.
181
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182 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
183
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184* Ada tasking support
185
186 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
187 been introduced:
188
189 info tasks
190 Print the list of Ada tasks.
191 info task N
192 Print detailed information about task number N.
193 task
194 Print the task number of the current task.
195 task N
196 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
197
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198* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
199add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
200
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201* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
202
203 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
204 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
205 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
206 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
207 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
208 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
209 below.
210
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211* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
212"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
213information.
214
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215* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
216to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
217architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
218See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
219more information.
220
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221* Multi-architecture debugging.
222
223 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
224 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
225 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
226 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
227 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
228
229* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
230use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
231Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
232powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
233--enable-targets configure option.
234
d7713ae0 235* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 236
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237catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
238 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
239 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
240 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
241 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
242 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
243 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
244 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
245 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
246
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247find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
248 val1 [, val2, ...]
249 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
250
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251maint set python print-stack
252maint show python print-stack
253 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
254
255python [CODE]
256 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
257
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258macro define
259macro list
260macro undef
261 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
262 interactively.
263
264info os processes
265 Show operating system information about processes.
266
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267info inferiors
268 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
269
270inferior NUM
271 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
272
273detach inferior NUM
274 Detach from inferior number NUM.
275
276kill inferior NUM
277 Kill inferior number NUM.
278
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279* New options
280
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281set spu stop-on-load
282show spu stop-on-load
283 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
284
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285set spu auto-flush-cache
286show spu auto-flush-cache
287 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
288 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
289
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290set sh calling-convention
291show sh calling-convention
292 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
293
e0a3ce09 294set debug timestamp
75feb17d 295show debug timestamp
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296 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
297
298set disassemble-next-line
299show disassemble-next-line
300 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
301 the debuggee stops.
302
303set remote noack-packet
304show remote noack-packet
305 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
306 under "New remote packets."
307
308set remote query-attached-packet
309show remote query-attached-packet
310 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
311
312set remote read-siginfo-object
313show remote read-siginfo-object
314 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
315 packet.
316
317set remote write-siginfo-object
318show remote write-siginfo-object
319 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
320 packet.
321
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322set remote reverse-continue
323show remote reverse-continue
324 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
325
326set remote reverse-step
327show remote reverse-step
328 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
329
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330set displaced-stepping
331show displaced-stepping
332 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
333 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
334 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
335
336set debug displaced
337show debug displaced
338 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
339
340maint set internal-error
341maint show internal-error
342 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
343
344maint set internal-warning
345maint show internal-warning
346 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 347
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348set exec-wrapper
349show exec-wrapper
350unset exec-wrapper
351 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 352
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353set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
354show multiple-symbols
355 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
356 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
357 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
358
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359set breakpoint always-inserted
360show breakpoint always-inserted
361 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
362 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
363 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
364
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365set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
366show arm fallback-mode
367set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
368show arm force-mode
369 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
370 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
371 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
372 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
373
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374set disable-randomization
375show disable-randomization
376 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
377 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
378 multiple debugging sessions.
379
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380set non-stop
381show non-stop
382 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
383 a breakpoint.
384
b3eb342c 385set target-async
d7713ae0 386show target-async
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387 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
388 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
389 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
390 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
391
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392set target-wide-charset
393show target-wide-charset
394 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
395 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
396
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397set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
398show tcp auto-retry
399set tcp connect-timeout
400show tcp connect-timeout
401 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
402 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
403 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
404
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405set libthread-db-search-path
406show libthread-db-search-path
407 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
408 libthread_db.
409
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410set schedule-multiple (on|off)
411show schedule-multiple
412 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
413 the current process.
414
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415set stack-cache
416show stack-cache
417 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
418 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
419 affecting correctness.
420
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421set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
422show interactive-mode
423 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
424 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
425 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
426 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
427 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
428
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429* Removed commands
430
431info forks
432 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
433 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
434 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
435 command.
436
437fork NUM
438 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
439 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
440 alias for the `fork' command.
441
442process PID
443 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
444 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
445 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
446
447delete fork NUM
448 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
449 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
450 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
451 fork' command.
452
453detach fork NUM
454 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
455 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
456 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
457 fork' command.
458
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459* New native configurations
460
461x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
462
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463x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
464
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465* New targets
466
c28c63d8 467Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 468x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 469x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 470S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 471
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472* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
473 (mingw32ce) debugging.
474
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475* Removed commands
476
477catch load
478catch unload
479 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
480
75feb17d 481*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 482
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483* New native configurations
484
485NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 486Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
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487
488* New targets
489
490NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 491Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 492
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493* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
494
495 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
496 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
497 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
498 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
499
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500* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
501(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
502
fe6fbf8b 503* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 504is resolved.
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505
506* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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507including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
508and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 509
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510* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
511accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
512more than one contiguous range of addresses.
513
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514* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
515
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516* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
517registers on PowerPC targets.
518
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519* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
520targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
521
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522* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
523commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
524
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525* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
526extended-remote mode.
527
24a836bd 528* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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529The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
530error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
531The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 532
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533* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
534building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
535target architectures.
536
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537* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
538Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
539now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
540stored in two consecutive float registers.
541
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542* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
543breakpoints now.
544
b93b6ca7 545* Improved support for debugging Ada
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546Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
547include:
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548 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
549 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
550 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
551 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
552 of an assignment
553 - Improved command completion in Ada
554 - Several bug fixes
555
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556* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
557process.
558
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559* New commands
560
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561set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
562show print frame-arguments
563 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
564 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
565
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566remote put
567remote get
568remote delete
569 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
570
571* New MI commands
572
573-target-file-put
574-target-file-get
575-target-file-delete
576 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
577
578* New remote packets
579
580vFile:open:
581vFile:close:
582vFile:pread:
583vFile:pwrite:
584vFile:unlink:
585 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 586
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587vAttach
588 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
589 mode.
590
591vRun
592 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
593
8d5f9c6f 594*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 595
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596* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
597bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
598Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
599
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600* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
601symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
602-Bsymbolic linker option.
603
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604* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
605recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
606is not supported.
607
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608* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
609frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
610
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611* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
61232-bit or 64-bit register values.
613
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614* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
615
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616* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
617target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
618a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
619
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620* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
621automatically displayed as character or string data.
622
623* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
624arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
625as strings.
e1f48ead 626
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627* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
628for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 629only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 630
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631* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
632iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 633
7c963485
PA
634* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
635ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
636has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
637
b18be20d
DJ
638* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
639
0ca420ce
UW
640* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
641
31d99776
DJ
642* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
643layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
644segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
645
a4642986
MR
646* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
647immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
648
cfa9d6d9
DJ
649* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
650"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
651packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
652where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
653Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
654
655* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
656(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
657
658* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
659according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 660
c9bb8148
DJ
661* New commands
662
23776285
MR
663set remoteflow
664show remoteflow
665 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
666 when debugging using remote targets.
667
c9bb8148
DJ
668set mem inaccessible-by-default
669show mem inaccessible-by-default
670 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
671 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
672 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
673 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
674 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
675
676set breakpoint auto-hw
677show breakpoint auto-hw
678 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
679 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
680 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
681 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
682 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
683 including "next" and "finish".
684
0e420bd8
JB
685catch exception
686catch exception unhandled
687 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
688
689catch assert
690 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
691
f822c95b
DJ
692set sysroot
693show sysroot
694 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
695 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
696 an alias to "set sysroot".
697
83cc5c53
UW
698info spu
699 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
700 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
701 architecture.
702
bd372731
MK
703* New native configurations
704
705OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
706
23181151
DJ
707set tdesc filename
708unset tdesc filename
709show tdesc filename
710 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
711 not query the target for its built-in description.
712
c9bb8148
DJ
713* New targets
714
54fe9172 715OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 716MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 717Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 718
6dd09645
JB
719* New remote packets
720
721QPassSignals:
722 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
723 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
724
23181151
DJ
725qXfer:features:read:
726 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
727 features.
6dd09645 728
83cc5c53
UW
729qXfer:spu:read:
730qXfer:spu:write:
731 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
732 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
733
cfa9d6d9
DJ
734qXfer:libraries:read:
735 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
736 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
737 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
738 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
739
483367ee
DJ
740* Removed targets
741
742Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
743
d08950c4
UW
744alpha*-*-osf1*
745alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 746d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
747hppa*-*-hiux*
748i[34567]86-ncr-*
749i[34567]86-*-dgux*
750i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
751i[34567]86-*-netware*
752i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
753i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
754i[34567]86-*-sco*
755i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
756i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
757i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
758i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
759i[34567]86-*-unixware*
760i[34567]86-*-sysv*
761i[34567]86-*-isc*
762m68*-cisco*-*
763m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 764mips*-*-pe
483367ee 765rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 766sh*-*-pe
483367ee 767
7ce59000
DJ
768* Other removed features
769
770target abug
771target cpu32bug
772target est
773target rom68k
774
775 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
776
ea35711c
DJ
777target hms
778target e7000
779target sh3
780target sh3e
781
782 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
783 H8/300.
784
785target ocd
786
787 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
788 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
789 interfaces.
790
7ce59000
DJ
791DWARF 1 support
792
793 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
794 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
795
54d61198
DJ
796Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
797
798 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
799 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
800 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
801 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
802
ea35711c
DJ
803MIPS ".pdr" sections
804
805 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
806 in debugging information.
807
808Scheme support
809
810 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
811 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
812
1a69e1e4
DJ
813set mips stack-arg-size
814set mips saved-gpreg-size
815
816 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
817
6dd09645 818*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 819
ca3bf3bd
DJ
820* New targets
821
822Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 823Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 824
6aec2e11
DJ
825* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
826(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
827running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
828
829* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
830Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
831supported.
832
17218d91
DJ
833* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
834broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
835
9ebce043
DJ
836* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
837stub provides the required support.
838
7d3d3ece
DJ
839* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
840longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
841
4f8253f3
JB
842* New commands
843
844set substitute-path
845unset substitute-path
846show substitute-path
847 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
848 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
849 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
850 between compilation and debugging.
851
9fa66fd7
AS
852set trace-commands
853show trace-commands
854 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
855 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
856 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
857
1f5befc1
DJ
858* REMOVED features
859
860The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
861
2ec3381a
DJ
862Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
863an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
864
3d00d119
DJ
865The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
866
be2a5f71
DJ
867* New remote packets
868
869qSupported:
870 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
871 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
872 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
873 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
874 target.
875
0876f84a
DJ
876qXfer:auxv:read:
877 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
878 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
879
9ebce043
DJ
880qXfer:memory-map:read:
881 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
882 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
883
884vFlashErase:
885vFlashWrite:
886vFlashDone:
887 Erase and program a flash memory device.
888
0876f84a
DJ
889* Removed remote packets
890
891qPart:auxv:read:
892 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
893 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
894
e374b601 895*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 896
96309189
MS
897* New targets
898
899Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
900
901Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
902
53e5f3cf
AS
903* New commands
904
905init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
906 only if it doesn't already have a value.
907
ac264b3b
MS
908The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
909
910checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
911
912restart <n> Return the program state to a
913 previously saved state.
914
915info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
916
917delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
918
919set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
920 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
921
922info forks List forks of the user program that
923 are available to be debugged.
924
925fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
926 forks of the user program that are
927 available to be debugged.
928
929delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
930 that are available to be debugged (and
931 kill the forked process).
932
933detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
934 that are available to be debugged (and
935 allow the process to continue).
936
3950dc3f
NS
937* New architecture
938
939Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
940
0ea3f30e
DJ
941* Improved Windows host support
942
943GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
944native console support, and remote communications using either
945network sockets or serial ports.
946
f79daebb
GM
947* Improved Modula-2 language support
948
949GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
950basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
951pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
952printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
953written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
954GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
955
acab6ab2
MM
956* REMOVED features
957
958The ARM rdi-share module.
959
f4267320
DJ
960The Netware NLM debug server.
961
53e5f3cf 962*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 963
e0ecbda1
MK
964* New native configurations
965
02a677ac 966OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
967OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
968
d64a6579
KB
969* New targets
970
971Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
972
b33a6190
AS
973* New command line options
974
975--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
976--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
977 the child (debugged) program exited with.
978--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
979 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
980 specified multiple times and in conjunction
981 with the --command (-x) option.
982
11dced61
AC
983* Deprecated commands removed
984
985The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
986removed:
987
988 Command Replacement
989 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
990 othernames set arm disassembler
991 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
992 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
993 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
994 regs info registers
995
6fe85783
MK
996* New BSD user-level threads support
997
998It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
999library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1000configurations are:
1001
1002FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1003FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1004OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1005
1006Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1007are not yet supported.
1008
5260ca71
MS
1009* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1010(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1011
e84ecc99
AC
1012* REMOVED configurations and files
1013
1014VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1015Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1016National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1017
31e35378
JB
1018* New "set print array-indexes" command
1019
1020After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1021when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1022behavior.
1023
e85e5c83
MK
1024* VAX floating point support
1025
1026GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1027
d91e9901
AS
1028* User-defined command support
1029
1030In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1031to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1032section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1033
f2cb65ca
MC
1034*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1035
f47b1503
AS
1036* New command line option
1037
1038GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1039debugging.
1040
f2cb65ca
MC
1041* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1042
1043GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1044information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1045by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1046proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1047to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1048
d08c0230
AC
1049* Internationalization
1050
1051When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1052internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1053continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1054
117ea3cf
PH
1055* Ada
1056
1057Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1058implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1059into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1060
d08c0230
AC
1061* New native configurations
1062
1063GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1064
1065* Remote 'p' packet
1066
1067GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1068packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1069
1070* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1071
1072GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1073The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1074features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1075i386 application).
1076
1077GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1078compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1079continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1080configurations:
1081
1082hppa-*-hpux
1083ia64-*-aix
1084mips-*-irix*
1085*-*-lynx
1086mips-*-linux-gnu
1087sds protocol
1088xdr protocol
1089powerpc bdm protocol
1090
1091Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1092made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1093
1094* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1095
1096Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1097been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1098configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1099permanently REMOVED.
1100
1101h8300-*-*
1102mcore-*-*
1103mn10300-*-*
1104ns32k-*-*
1105sh64-*-*
1106v850-*-*
1107
ebb7c577
AC
1108*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1109
1110* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1111
1112When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1113heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1114been fixed.
1115
1116* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1117
1118When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1119fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1120IRIX long double values).
1121
1122* VAX and "next"
1123
1124A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1125command. This problem has been fixed.
1126
860660cb 1127*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1128
0dea2468
AC
1129* Fix for ``many threads''
1130
1131On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1132rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1133error message:
1134
1135 ptrace: No such process.
1136 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1137
1138This problem has been fixed.
1139
2c07db7a
AC
1140* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1141
1142Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1143GDB to dump core).
1144
c23968a2
JB
1145* New ``start'' command.
1146
1147This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1148
71009278
MK
1149* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1150
1151Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1152live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1153platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1154
1155FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1156FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1157NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1158NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1159NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1160OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1161OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1162OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1163OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1164
3c0b7db2
AC
1165* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1166
1167Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1168These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1169of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1170call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1171signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1172
73cc75f3
AC
1173Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1174features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1175include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1176
7243600a
BF
1177* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1178
6f606e1c
MK
1179* New native configurations
1180
97dc871c 1181GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1182OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1183OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1184OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1185OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1186NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1187OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1188
a1b461bf
AC
1189* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1190
1191GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1192The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1193including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1194migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1195compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1196work, was also included.
1197
1198GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1199module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1200
1201h8300-*-*
1202mcore-*-*
1203mn10300-*-*
1204ns32k-*-*
1205sh64-*-*
1206v850-*-*
1207xstormy16-*-*
1208
1209Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1210made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1211
3c7012f5
AC
1212* REMOVED configurations and files
1213
1214Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1215Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1216Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1217Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1218Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1219AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1220Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1221decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1222riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1223sonymips mips-sony-*
1224sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1225
e5fe55f7
AC
1226*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1227
1228* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1229
1230The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1231GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1232command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1233program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1234with GDB".
1235
1236* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1237
1238Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1239libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1240cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1241GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1242shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1243the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1244are created.
1245
1246Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1247
1248* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1249
1250The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1251non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1252compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1253
1254* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1255
1256Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1257wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1258
1259* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1260
1261The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1262permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1263systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1264
1265* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1266
1267Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1268has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1269
1270* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1271
1272GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1273its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1274panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1275
1276* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1277
1278When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1279by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1280not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1281
faae5abe 1282*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1283
9175c9a3
MC
1284* Removed --with-mmalloc
1285
1286Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1287conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1288
3cc87ec0
MK
1289* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1290
1291The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1292the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1293and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1294you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1295
f0424ef6
MK
1296* Revised SPARC target
1297
1298The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1299FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1300support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1301from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1302(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1303
59659be2
ILT
1304* New C++ demangler
1305
1306GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1307names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1308with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1309programs.
1310
9e08b29b
DJ
1311* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1312
1313GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1314arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1315encountered these.
1316
8dfe8985
DC
1317* C++ nested types and namespaces
1318
1319GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1320improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1321is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1322Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1323namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1324"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1325frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1326if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1327GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1328
cced5e27
MK
1329* New native configurations
1330
1331NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1332OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1333OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1334OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1335OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1336
b4b4b794
KI
1337* New debugging protocols
1338
1339M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1340
7989c619
AC
1341* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1342
1343The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1344and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1345tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1346
5994185b
AC
1347* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1348
1349Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1350been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1351configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1352permanently REMOVED.
1353
1354Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1355Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1356Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1357Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1358Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1359AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1360Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1361decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1362riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1363sonymips mips-sony-*
1364sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1365
0ddabb4c
AC
1366* REMOVED configurations and files
1367
1368SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1369SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1370Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1371Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1372H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1373HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1374HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1375HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1376PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1377386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1378Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1379 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1380 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1381SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1382SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1383Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1384Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1385
c7f1390e
DJ
1386*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1387
1fe43d45
AC
1388* Objective-C
1389
1390Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1391integrated into GDB.
1392
e6beb428
AC
1393* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1394
1395DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1396information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1397By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1398backtraces.
1399
1400The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1401have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1402DWARF 2 CFI support.
1403
1404* Hosted file I/O.
1405
1406GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1407file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1408remote protocol documentation for details.
1409
1410* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1411
1412All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1413architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1414to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1415ppc32 on ppc64).
1416
1417* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1418
1419GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1420per-thread variables.
1421
1422* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1423
1424GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1425GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1426
1427* Separate debug info.
1428
1429GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1430automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1431of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1432system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1433and optional debug files.
1434
1435* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1436
1437DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1438describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1439debugger.
1440
1441GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1442for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1443
1444* Java
1445
1446A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1447Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1448considered "useable".
1449
85f8f974
DJ
1450* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1451
1452The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1453commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1454kernel.
1455
0fac0b41
DJ
1456* GDB supports logging output to a file
1457
1458There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1459used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1460
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1461* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1462
1463The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1464disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1465command.
1466
e286caf2 1467* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1468
1469The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1470registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1471
d28f9cdf
DJ
1472* Profiling support
1473
1474A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1475be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1476session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1477"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1478data, for more informative profiling results.
1479
da0f9dcd
AC
1480* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1481
1482The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1483option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1484"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1485
1486Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1487removed.
1488
fb9b6b35
JJ
1489Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1490Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1491Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1492 in a subsequent -var-update.
1493
954a4db8
MK
1494* New native configurations.
1495
1496FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1497
6760f9e6
JB
1498* Multi-arched targets.
1499
b4263afa 1500HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1501Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1502
1b831c93
AC
1503* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1504
1505Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1506been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1507configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1508permanently REMOVED.
1509
8b0e5691 1510Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1511Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1512H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1513HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1514HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1515HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1516PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1517Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1518 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1519 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1520Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1521Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1522
5835abe7
NC
1523* REMOVED configurations and files
1524
1525V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1526Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1527IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1528i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1529i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1530i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1531HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1532 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1533 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1534Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1535Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1536Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1537OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1538I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1539
a094c6fb
AC
1540* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1541
1542The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1543the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1544context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1545address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1546The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1547
299ffc64 1548*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1549
46248966
AC
1550* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1551
1552When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1553`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1554in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1555library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1556shared libs like mad''.
1557
b9d14705 1558* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1559
b9d14705
DJ
1560Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1561the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1562arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1563powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1564
e0e9281e
JB
1565* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1566
1567GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1568and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1569they expand.
1570
dd73b9bb
AC
1571The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1572invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1573
1574The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1575macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1576
e0e9281e
JB
1577Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1578information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1579your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1580information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1581
2250ee0c
CV
1582* Multi-arched targets.
1583
6e3ba3b8
JT
1584DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1585DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1586NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1587National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1588Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1589Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1590
cd9bfe15 1591* New targets.
e33ce519 1592
456f8b9d
DB
1593Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1594
e33ce519 1595
da8ca43d
JT
1596* New native configurations
1597
1598Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1599SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1600MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1601UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1602
cd9bfe15
AC
1603* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1604
1605Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1606been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1607configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1608permanently REMOVED.
1609
92eb23c5 1610Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1611OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1612IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1613Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1614Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1615Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1616i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1617i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1618i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1619HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1620 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1621 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1622I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1623
db034ac5
AC
1624* OBSOLETE languages
1625
1626CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1627
cd9bfe15
AC
1628* REMOVED configurations and files
1629
1630AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1631A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1632AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1633AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1634AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1635
1636testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1637
20f01a46
DH
1638* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1639
1640This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1641commands. The default is 1024.
1642
a5941fbf
MK
1643* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1644
1645Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1646
89743e04
MS
1647* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1648
1649These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1650to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1651from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1652
9fb14e79
JB
1653* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1654
1655The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1656including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1657of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1658
2037aebb
AC
1659*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1660
1661* New targets.
1662
1663Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1664
1665* Bug fixes
1666
1667gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1668mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1669Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1670
1671gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1672dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1673Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1674
1675Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1676Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1677By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1678
1679i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1680avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1681By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1682
37057839 1683*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1684
1a703748
MS
1685* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1686
1687This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1688really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1689In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1690target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1691This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1692(notably embedded) targets.
1693
cefd4ef5
MS
1694* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1695
55241689
AC
1696This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1697process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1698GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1699hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1700
352ed7b4
MS
1701* New command line option
1702
1703GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1704
1705* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1706
1707There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1708command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1709a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1710be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1711open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1712issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1713a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1714it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1715GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1716is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1717
fe419ffc
RE
1718* Changes in ARM configurations.
1719
1720Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1721configuration is fully multi-arch.
1722
eb7cedd9
MK
1723* New native configurations
1724
fe419ffc 1725ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1726x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1727AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1728Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1729
c9f63e6b
CV
1730* New targets
1731
1732Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1733
9b4ff276
AC
1734* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1735
1736Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1737been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1738configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1739permanently REMOVED.
1740
1741AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1742A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1743AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1744AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1745AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1746
b4ceaee6 1747testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1748
e2caac18
AC
1749* REMOVED configurations and files
1750
1751TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1752WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1753PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1754PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1755PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1756Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1757Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1758 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1759SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1760Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1761Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1762ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1763Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1764
c2a727fa
TT
1765* Changes to command line processing
1766
1767The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1768for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1769
467d8519
TT
1770* Changes to key bindings
1771
1772There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1773
7072a954
AC
1774*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1775
1776Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1777
1778Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1779corrupted.
1780
1781Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1782
1783Numerous documentation fixes.
1784
1785Numerous testsuite fixes.
1786
34f47bc4 1787*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1788
1789* New native configurations
1790
1791Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1792x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1793MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1794MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1795ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1796s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1797
bf64bfd6
AC
1798* New targets
1799
def90278 1800Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1801CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1802UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1803
17e78a56 1804* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1805
1806x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1807Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1808Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1809 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1810TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1811WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1812Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1813PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1814PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1815PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1816SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1817Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1818ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1819Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1820
17e78a56
AC
1821stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1822kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1823
7fcca85b
AC
1824Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1825been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1826configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1827permanently REMOVED.
1828
a196c81c 1829* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1830
1831Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1832Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1833Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1834ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1835Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1836ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1837
6d6b80e5 1838* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1839
6d6b80e5 1840GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1841sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1842present.
1843
bf64bfd6
AC
1844* Other news:
1845
e23194cb
EZ
1846* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1847
1848* The MI enabled by default.
1849
1850The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1851revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1852engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1853using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1854which is now deprecated.
1855
1856* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1857
1858GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1859main features are supported:
1860
1861 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1862
1863 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1864 extension;
1865
1866 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1867
1868 - a Pascal expression parser.
1869
1870However, some important features are not yet supported.
1871
1872 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1873
1874 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1875
1876 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1877 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1878
1879 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1880
1881 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1882
1883* Changes in completion.
1884
1885Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1886to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1887users expect at the shell prompt.
1888
1889Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1890`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1891program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1892files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1893be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1894considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1895name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1896
1897`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1898
1899* New platform-independent commands:
1900
1901It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1902hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1903documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1904
1905* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1906
d7275149
MK
1907Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1908revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1909many threads as your system allows you to have.
1910
e23194cb
EZ
1911Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1912
d7275149
MK
1913Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1914multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1915
1916* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1917
1918Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1919
e23194cb
EZ
1920GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1921debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1922supported.)
1923
1924* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1925
1926Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1927breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1928implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1929put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1930and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1931registers.
1932
1933The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1934debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1935watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1936
1937* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1938
1939New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1940the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1941
1942New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1943display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1944IDT.
1945
1946New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1947from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1948New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1949a given linear address.
1950
1951GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1952program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1953which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1954
1955DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1956
6c56c069
EZ
1957It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1958
e23194cb
EZ
1959* Changes in documentation.
1960
1961All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1962Documentation License.
1963
1964Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1965manual.
1966
1967TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1968
1969Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1970manual.
1971
1972The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1973documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1974hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1975
5d6640b1
AC
1976* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1977
1978The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1979``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1980contents of this file.
1981
1a1d8446
AC
1982* gdba.el deleted
1983
1984GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1985
9debab2f 1986*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1987
c63ce875
EZ
1988* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1989
1990Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1991programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1992displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1993greater level of detail.
1994
1995* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1996
1997It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1998bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1999on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2000written.
2001
2002* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2003
2004The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2005necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2006machines ``out of the box''.
2007
2008The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2009possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2010signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2011would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2012interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2013
2014It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2015standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2016even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2017and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2018terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2019
2020The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2021enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2022also works.
2023
2024DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2025GDB.
2026
2027It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2028directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2029times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2030breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2031
ed9a39eb
JM
2032* New native configurations
2033
2034ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2035PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2036
7a292a7a
SS
2037* New targets
2038
96baa820 2039Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2040x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2041PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2042TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2043
085dd6e6
JM
2044* OBSOLETE configurations
2045
2046Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2047Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2048Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2049ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2050Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2051
9debab2f
AC
2052Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2053but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2054these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2055be permanently REMOVED.
2056
5330533d
SS
2057* Gould support removed
2058
2059Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2060
bc9e5bbf
AC
2061* New features for SVR4
2062
2063On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2064without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2065load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2066
2067* Many C++ enhancements
2068
2069C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2070in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2071
adf40b2e
JM
2072* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2073
2074A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2075sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2076with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2077``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2078
2079 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2080 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2081
43e526b9
JM
2082* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2083
2084A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2085expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2086instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2087
2088The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2089added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2090
96baa820
JM
2091* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2092
2093The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2094``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2095include ``set remote P-packet''.
2096
11cf8741
JM
2097* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2098
2099The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2100accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2101``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2102
7876dd43
DB
2103* ``apropos'' command added.
2104
2105The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2106documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2107try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2108
bc9e5bbf
AC
2109* New MI interface
2110
2111A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2112interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2113process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2114"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2115enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2116
2117 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2118
c906108c
SS
2119*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2120
2121* New native configurations
2122
2123HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2124HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2125M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2126
2127* New targets
2128
2129Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2130Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2131Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2132
2133* OBSOLETE configurations
2134
2135Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2136
2137Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2138but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2139these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2140be permanently REMOVED.
2141
2142* ANSI/ISO C
2143
2144As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2145buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2146containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2147use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2148available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2149configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2150information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2151already.
2152
2153* Readline 2.2
2154
2155GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2156
2157* set extension-language
2158
2159You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2160languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2161you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2162 set extension-language .c c++
2163The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2164and their associated languages.
2165
2166* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2167
2168When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2169you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2170PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2171
2172 set processor NAME
2173
2174sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2175following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2176
2177 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2178 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2179 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2180 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2181 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2182 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2183 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2184 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2185 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2186 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2187 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2188
2189At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2190special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2191registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2192only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2193
2194* HP-UX support
2195
2196Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2197more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2198library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2199support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2200for xdb and dbx commands.
2201
2202* Catchpoints
2203
2204HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2205generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2206to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2207
2208This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2209argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2210output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2211
2212* Debugging across forks
2213
2214On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2215in the inferior.
2216
2217* TUI
2218
2219HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2220it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2221configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2222
2223* GDB remote protocol additions
2224
2225A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2226Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2227fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2228allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2229
2230For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2231full 64-bit address. The command
2232
2233 set remoteaddresssize 32
2234
2235can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2236the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2237will be discarded.
2238
2239In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2240command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2241
2242 maint packet heythere
2243
2244sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2245disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2246time.
2247
2248The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2249target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2250downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2251
2252* Tracing can collect general expressions
2253
2254You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2255further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2256doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2257
2258* mask-address variable for Mips
2259
2260For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2261a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2262of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2263
2264* Higher serial baud rates
2265
2266GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2267230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2268to achieve all of these rates.)
2269
2270* i960 simulator
2271
2272The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2273builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2274
2275
2276*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2277
2278* New native configurations
2279
2280Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2281Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2282Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2283PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2284PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2285Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2286Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2287
2288* New targets
2289
2290Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2291Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2292Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2293Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2294MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2295MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2296MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2297Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2298Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2299Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2300NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2301
2302* New debugging protocols
2303
2304ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2305M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2306DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2307PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2308PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2309Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2310
2311* DWARF 2
2312
2313All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2314format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2315information.
2316
2317* Java frontend
2318
2319GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2320only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2321
2322* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2323
2324For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2325loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2326locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2327
2328* Live range splitting
2329
2330GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2331range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2332more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2333
2334* Hurd support
2335
2336GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2337updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2338
2339* ARM Thumb support
2340
2341GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2342instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2343instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2344accordingly.
2345
2346* MIPS16 support
2347
2348GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2349instruction set.
2350
2351* Overlay support
2352
2353GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2354linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2355will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2356control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2357additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2358in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2359
2360* info symbol
2361
2362The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2363the symbol at the specified address.
2364
2365* Trace support
2366
2367The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2368asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2369extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2370includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2371file tracepoint.c for more details.
2372
2373* MIPS simulator
2374
2375Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2376by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2377of most MIPS variants.
2378
2379* Sparc simulator
2380
2381Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2382by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2383Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2384
2385* set architecture
2386
2387For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2388basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2389architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2390the possible architectures.
2391
2392*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2393
2394* New native configurations
2395
2396Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2397M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2398PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2399PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2400PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2401RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2402
2403* New targets
2404
2405ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2406I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2407MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2408MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2409PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2410Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2411Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2412
2413* PowerPC simulator
2414
2415The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2416contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2417PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2418basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2419performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2420
2421* Solaris 2.5
2422
2423GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2424
2425* Windows 95/NT native
2426
2427GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2428To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2429which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2430Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2431ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2432
2433* dont-repeat command
2434
2435If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2436command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2437useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2438extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2439
2440* Send break instead of ^C
2441
2442The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2443rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2444GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2445
2446* Remote protocol timeout
2447
2448The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2449that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2450to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2451
2452* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2453
2454By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2455loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2456stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2457when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2458in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2459
2460Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2461/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2462automatically on hpux10.
2463
2464* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2465
2466Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2467
2468* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2469
2470When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2471may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2472the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2473every character. The default value is 1050.
2474
2475* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2476
2477If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2478a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2479replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2480details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2481remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2482to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2483
2484* Speedups for remote debugging
2485
2486GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2487the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2488and more efficient S-record downloading.
2489
2490* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2491
2492GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2493Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2494
2495*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2496
2497* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2498
2499The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2500can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2501
2502* Remote targets use caching
2503
2504Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2505remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2506it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2507debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2508off' turns the the data cache off.
2509
2510* Remote targets may have threads
2511
2512The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2513in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2514gdb/remote.c for details.
2515
2516* NetROM support
2517
2518If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2519support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2520acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2521write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2522support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2523another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2524sequence is something like
2525
2526 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2527 load <prog>
2528 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2529
2530* Macintosh host
2531
2532GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2533may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2534it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2535available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2536device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2537directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2538scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2539mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2540
2541* Autoconf
2542
2543GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2544but does simplify configuration and building.
2545
2546* hpux10
2547
2548GDB now supports hpux10.
2549
2550*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2551
2552* New native configurations
2553
2554x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2555x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2556NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2557Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2558
2559* New targets
2560
2561A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2562HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2563CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2564PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2565WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2566
2567* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2568
2569GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2570possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2571filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2572the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2573if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2574
2575* Arguments to user-defined commands
2576
2577User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2578Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2579trivial example:
2580define adder
2581 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2582
2583To execute the command use:
2584adder 1 2 3
2585
2586Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2587Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2588use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2589
2590* New `if' and `while' commands
2591
2592This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2593commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2594expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2595execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2596terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2597`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2598if the expression is zero.
2599
2600* Fortran source language mode
2601
2602GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2603Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2604variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2605with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2606Fortran compilers.
2607
2608* Better HPUX support
2609
2610Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2611running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2612processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2613for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2614that behavior do the following before running the program:
2615
2616 adb -w a.out
2617 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2618 control-d
2619
2620This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2621To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2622
2623 adb -w a.out
2624 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2625 control-d
2626
2627You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2628the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2629external linkage.
2630
2631GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2632HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2633
2634* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2635
2636You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2637commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2638current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2639"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2640associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2641configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2642
2643* New DOS host serial code
2644
2645This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2646no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2647a PC's serial port.
2648
2649*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2650
2651* New "complete" command
2652
2653This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2654were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2655
2656* Trailing space optional in prompt
2657
2658"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2659allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2660
2661* Breakpoint hit counts
2662
2663"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2664has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2665can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2666to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2667less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2668that breakpoint.
2669
2670* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2671
2672"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2673an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2674arrays actually contain only short strings.
2675
2676* Shared library breakpoints
2677
2678In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2679breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2680
2681* Hardware watchpoints
2682
2683There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2684targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2685
55241689 2686Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2687
2688* Annotations
2689
2690Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2691and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2692
2693* Improved Irix 5 support
2694
2695GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2696
2697* Improved HPPA support
2698
2699GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2700
2701* New native configurations
2702
2703Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2704HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2705Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2706RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2707
2708* New targets
2709
2710OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2711MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2712Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2713
2714* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2715
2716There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2717This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2718
2719* Fixes
2720
2721As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2722and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2723
2724*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2725
2726* Irix 5 is now supported
2727
2728* HPPA support
2729
2730GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2731to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2732GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2733of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2734can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2735
2736
2737*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2738
2739* User visible changes:
2740
2741* Remote Debugging
2742
2743The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2744target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2745debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2746integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2747debugging info for the mips target).
2748
2749* DEC Alpha native support
2750
2751GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2752debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2753work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2754Alpha-specific notes.
2755
2756* Preliminary thread implementation
2757
2758GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2759
2760* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2761
2762This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2763to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2764for details).
2765
2766* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2767
2768This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2769mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2770call methods, ...etc.
2771
2772*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2773
2774 * User visible changes:
2775
2776Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2777supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2778other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2779somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2780
2781Filename completion now works.
2782
2783When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2784arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2785addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2786
2787All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2788vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2789should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2790your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2791to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2792
2793 * DEC alpha support
2794
2795This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2796cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2797
2798
2799*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2800
2801 * Testsuite
2802
2803This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2804The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2805via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2806
2807 * C++ demangling
2808
2809'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2810emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2811Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2812disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2813use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2814
2815 * Simulators
2816
2817GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2818So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2819Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2820
2821 * New targets supported
2822
2823H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2824H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2825SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2826Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2827IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2828
2829Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2830version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2831GO32 memory extender.
2832
2833 * New remote protocols
2834
2835MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2836
2837 * New source languages supported
2838
2839This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2840used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2841into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2842
2843
2844*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2845
2846 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2847
2848GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2849version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2850University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2851compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2852format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2853(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2854
2855Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2856
2857 * Faster and better demangling
2858
2859We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2860demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2861character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2862only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2863This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2864increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2865symbol lookups.
2866
2867`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2868from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2869compiler does not actually implement.
2870
2871 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2872
2873In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2874inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2875recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2876very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2877The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2878circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2879fix.
2880
2881The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2882release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2883
2884 * Improved configure script
2885
2886The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2887you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2888host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2889done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2890
2891We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2892version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2893`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2894The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2895only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2896We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2897
2898 * Documentation improvements
2899
2900There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2901produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2902before submitting changes.
2903
2904The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2905M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2906`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2907you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2908a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2909
2910*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2911We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2912been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2913or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2914`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2915around this problem.
2916
2917 * New features
2918
2919GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2920the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2921`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2922the target program.
2923
2924The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2925how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2926
2927 * New native hosts supported
2928
2929HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2930386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2931
2932 * New targets supported
2933
2934AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2935
2936 * New file formats supported
2937
2938BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2939HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2940
2941 * Major bug fixes
2942
2943Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2944
2945We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2946printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2947
2948We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2949for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2950release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2951
2952You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2953will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2954
2955We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2956for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2957especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2958libraries.
2959
2960The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2961information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2962command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2963any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2964when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2965
2966 * Internal improvements
2967
2968GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2969debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2970
2971GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2972Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2973symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2974contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2975shared code that handles any of them.
2976
2977 * New command line options
2978
2979We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2980
2981 * Mmalloc licensing
2982
2983The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2984General Public License.
2985
2986*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2987
2988 * Host/native/target split
2989
2990GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2991hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2992target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2993local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2994ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2995
2996The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2997GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2998is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2999code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3000any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3001built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3002handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3003
3004GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3005It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3006plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3007
3008 * New hosts supported
3009
3010HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3011386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3012386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3013
3014 * New targets supported
3015
3016Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
301768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3018
3019 * New native hosts supported
3020
3021386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3022 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3023386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3024
3025 * New file formats supported
3026
3027BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3028supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3029format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3030
3031 * New commands
3032
3033`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3034`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3035These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3036
3037`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3038
3039You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3040scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3041prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3042executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3043
3044 * C++ improvements
3045
3046We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3047info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3048symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3049
3050Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3051
3052 * Major bug fixes
3053
3054The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3055fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3056by the compiler.
3057
3058We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3059support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3060
3061John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3062slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3063that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3064purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3065the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3066mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3067
3068Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3069about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3070completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3071we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3072
3073 * AMD 29k support
3074
3075A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3076specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3077calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3078usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3079in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3080
3081We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3082Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3083of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3084resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3085
3086 * Remote interfaces
3087
3088We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3089with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3090message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3091This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3092needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3093breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3094each instruction being stepped through.
3095
3096The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3097registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3098
3099There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3100find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3101Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3102processor with a serial port.
3103
3104 * Configuration
3105
3106Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3107`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3108supported, and what files each one uses.
3109
3110 * Library changes
3111
3112There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3113disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3114Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3115disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3116
3117The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3118Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3119can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3120grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3121
3122 * Documentation
3123
3124The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3125reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3126as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3127encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3128system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3129bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3130
3131And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3132
3133
3134*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3135
3136 * Better support for C++ function names
3137
3138GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3139names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3140(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3141single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3142Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3143
3144GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3145the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3146You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3147lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3148for the list of formats.
3149
3150 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3151
3152Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3153C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3154directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3155can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3156usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3157about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3158this problem.)
3159
3160 * New 'maintenance' command
3161
3162All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3163the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3164can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3165
3166 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3167 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3168 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3169 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3170 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3171 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3172
3173The following commands are new:
3174
3175 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3176 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3177 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3178
3179 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3180
3181We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3182(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3183be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3184read after argv processing.
3185
3186 * New hosts supported
3187
3188Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3189
55241689 3190GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3191
3192We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3193is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3194for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3195masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3196fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3197It costs extra.
3198
3199 * New targets supported
3200
3201Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3202
3203 * More smarts about finding #include files
3204
3205GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3206all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3207greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3208especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3209the one that contains your sources.
3210
3211We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3212breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3213try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3214
3215 * Interesting infernals change
3216
3217GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3218section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3219target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3220stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3221
3222 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3223
3224There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3225 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3226 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3227
3228See the ChangeLog for details.
3229
3230*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3231
3232 * New machines supported (host and target)
3233
3234IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3235
3236SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3237
3238 * New malloc package
3239
3240GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3241Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3242capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3243This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3244pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3245more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3246
3247 * info proc
3248
3249The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3250'help info proc' for details.
3251
3252 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3253
3254The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3255Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3256possible.
3257
3258 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3259
3260Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3261support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3262conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3263environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3264that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3265in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3266
3267 * Cross byte order fixes
3268
3269Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3270targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3271
3272 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3273
3274If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3275system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3276`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3277program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3278called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3279Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3280and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3281the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3282option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3283starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3284
3285You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3286the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3287information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3288slower, but makes future operations faster.
3289
3290The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3291build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3292A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3293use is:
3294
3295 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3296
3297The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3298It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3299shared across multiple host platforms.
3300
3301 * longjmp() handling
3302
3303GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3304siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3305all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3306platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3307
3308 * Solaris 2.0
3309
3310Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3311this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3312reading symbols.
3313
3314 * Bug fixes
3315
3316As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3317People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3318crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3319
3320*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3321
3322 * New machines supported (host and target)
3323
3324SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3325 (except core files)
3326BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3327Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3328
3329 * New machines supported (target)
3330
3331AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3332
3333 * C++ support
3334
3335GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3336The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3337per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3338
3339GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3340`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3341extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3342good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3343will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3344released.
3345
3346 * New features for SVR4
3347
3348GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3349shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3350only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3351
3352The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3353on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3354it prints the address mappings of the process.
3355
3356If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3357bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3358
3359 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3360
3361Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3362now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3363skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3364make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3365same code linked statically.
3366
3367 * New Getopt
3368
3369GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3370version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3371continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3372Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3373added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3374future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3375
3376 * Bugs fixed
3377
3378The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3379Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3380See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3381
3382
3383*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3384
3385 * New machines supported (host and target)
3386
3387Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3388NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3389Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3390
3391 * Almost SCO Unix support
3392
3393We had hoped to support:
3394SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3395(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3396that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3397about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3398
3399 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3400
3401GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3402debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3403is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3404send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3405reqired (if any).
3406
3407 * New Readline
3408
3409GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3410is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3411required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3412
3413 * Bugs fixed
3414
3415The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3416Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3417See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3418
3419 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3420
3421GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3422supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3423symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3424
3425Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3426mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3427debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3428mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3429version 2.
3430
3431Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3432really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3433line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3434variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3435situation somewhat.
3436
3437When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3438However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3439methods.
3440
3441We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3442DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3443encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3444
3445
3446*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3447
3448 * Improved configuration
3449
3450Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3451Porting BFD is simpler.
3452
3453 * Stepping improved
3454
3455The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3456of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3457in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3458function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3459
3460 * Bug fixing
3461
3462Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3463
3464 * New host supported (not target)
3465
3466Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3467
3468
3469*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3470
3471 * Multiple source language support
3472
3473GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3474It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3475and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3476language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3477You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3478`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3479
3480 * GDB and Modula-2
3481
3482GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3483currently under development at the State University of New York at
3484Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3485continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3486
3487Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3488debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3489symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3490
3491There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3492in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3493
3494 * set write on/off
3495
3496GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3497a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3498the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3499by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3500effect immediately.
3501
3502 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3503
3504When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3505shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3506The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3507examining core files.
3508
3509 * set listsize
3510
3511You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3512The default is 10.
3513
3514 * New machines supported (host and target)
3515
3516SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3517Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3518Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3519
3520 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3521
3522IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3523
3524 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3525
3526AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3527AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3528Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3529
3530 * New remote interfaces
3531
3532AMD 29000 Adapt
3533AMD 29000 Minimon
3534
3535
3536*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3537
3538 * New Facilities
3539
3540Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3541
3542Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3543target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3544is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3545remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3546remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3547also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3548using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3549stub on the target system.
3550
3551New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3552
3553GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3554library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3555object file types such as a.out and coff.
3556
3557There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3558refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3559
3560
3561 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3562
3563All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3564by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3565
3566For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3567``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3568Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3569
3570What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3571print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3572will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3573all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3574
3575confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3576 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3577 it is already running. Default is ON.
3578
3579editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3580 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3581 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3582 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3583 Default is ON.
3584
3585history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3586 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3587 or the value of the environment variable
3588 GDBHISTFILE.
3589
3590history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3591 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3592 HISTSIZE.
3593
3594history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3595 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3596 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3597
3598history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3599 history expansion will be performed on
3600 command line input. The default is OFF.
3601
3602radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3603 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3604 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3605
3606height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3607 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3608 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3609 variable TERM.
3610
3611width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3612 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3613 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3614 variable TERM.
3615
3616Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3617``set width'' instead.
3618
3619print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3620 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3621 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3622 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3623
3624print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3625 is OFF.
3626
3627print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3628 "raw" form if off.
3629
3630print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3631 like instructions.
3632
3633print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3634
3635
3636 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3637
3638The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3639new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3640are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3641window.
3642
3643
3644 * Support for Shared Libraries
3645
3646GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3647Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3648before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3649happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3650At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3651from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3652shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3653It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3654
3655sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3656 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3657 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3658
3659info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3660
3661
3662 * Watchpoints
3663
3664A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3665expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3666tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3667quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3668problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3669more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3670
3671watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3672
3673info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3674
3675delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3676disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3677enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3678
3679
3680 * C++ multiple inheritance
3681
3682When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3683for C++ programs.
3684
3685 * C++ exception handling
3686
3687Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3688ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3689the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3690handler's context).
3691
3692catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3693 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3694 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3695
3696info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3697 current stack frame.
3698
3699
3700 * Minor command changes
3701
3702The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3703command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3704is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3705
3706The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3707at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3708frames without printing.
3709
3710 * New directory command
3711
3712'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3713The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3714about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3715with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3716find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3717
3718 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3719
3720For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3721for more details.
3722
3723GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3724two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3725Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3726where the program that you are debugging will run.
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