2013-06-04 Gary Benson <gbenson@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
9
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10* New targets
11
12Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
13Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
14
bd712aed 15* New commands:
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16catch rethrow
17 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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18maint check-psymtabs
19 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
20maint check-symtabs
21 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
22maint expand-symtabs
23 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 24
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25show configuration
26 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
27
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28maint set|show per-command
29maint set|show per-command space
30maint set|show per-command time
31maint set|show per-command symtab
32 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
33
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34* New options
35
36set remote trace-status-packet
37show remote trace-status-packet
38 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
39
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40set debug nios2
41show debug nios2
42 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
43
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44set range-stepping
45show range-stepping
46 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
47
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48* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
49 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
50 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
51 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
52 "set height 0".
53
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54* New command-line options
55--configuration
56 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
57
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58* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
59 buffer in Common Trace Format.
60
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61* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
62 GDB command gcore.
63
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64* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
65
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66* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
67 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
68
69* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
70 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
71
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72* MI changes
73
74 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
75 Trace Format now.
76
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77 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
78
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79* New system-wide configuration scripts
80 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
81 configuration scripts for the following systems:
82 ** ElinOS
83 ** Wind River Linux
84
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85* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
86 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
87 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
88 below.
89
90* New remote packets
91
92vCont;r
93
94 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
95 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
96 involvemement at each single-step.
97
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98* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
99
100 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
101 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
102
2d450646 103*** Changes in GDB 7.6
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105* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
106 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
107 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
108 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
109
110set|show record full insn-number-max
111set|show record full stop-at-limit
112set|show record full memory-query
113
114* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
115 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
116 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
117 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
118 This new recording method can be enabled using:
119
120record btrace
121
122 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
123 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
124
125* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
126 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
127 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
128
129record instruction-history prints the execution history at
130 instruction granularity
131
132record function-call-history prints the execution history at
133 function granularity
134
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135* New native configurations
136
51d66578 137ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 138FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 139x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 140Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 141
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142* New targets
143
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144ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
145ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 146Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 147x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 148Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 149
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150* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
151 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
152 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
153 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
154 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
155 --data-directory command-line option.
156
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157* New command line options:
158
159-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
160 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
161
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162* Removed command line options
163
164-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
165 Emacs.
166
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167* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
168 type formatting.
169
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170* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
171
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172* Python scripting
173
174 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
175
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176 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
177
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178 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
179
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180 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
181
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182 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
183 of architecture in the Python API.
184
185 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
186 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
187
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188* New Python-based convenience functions:
189
190 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
191 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
192 ** $_strlen(str)
193 ** $_regex(str, regex)
194
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195* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
196 given an argument.
197
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198* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
199 default for GCC since November 2000.
200
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201* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
202
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203* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
204 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
205
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206* New configure options
207
208--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
209 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
210 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
211 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
212 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
213 options allow the user to override that default.
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214--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
215 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
216 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 217
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218* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
219
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220catch signal
221 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
222 conditions to be attached.
223
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224maint info bfds
225 List the BFDs known to GDB.
226
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227python-interactive [command]
228pi [command]
229 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
230 and print the result of expressions.
231
232py [command]
233 "py" is a new alias for "python".
234
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235enable type-printer [name]...
236disable type-printer [name]...
237 Enable or disable type printers.
238
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239* Removed commands
240
241 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
242 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
243 instead.
244
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245* New options
246
247set print type methods (on|off)
248show print type methods
249 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
250 The default is to show them.
251
252set print type typedefs (on|off)
253show print type typedefs
254 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
255 The default is to show them.
256
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257set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
258show filename-display
259 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
260 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
261
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262set trace-buffer-size
263show trace-buffer-size
264 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
265
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266set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
267show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
268 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
269
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270set debug aarch64
271show debug aarch64
272 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
273 The default is off.
274
275set debug coff-pe-read
276show debug coff-pe-read
277 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
278 exported symbols.
279
280set debug mach-o
281show debug mach-o
282 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
283 processing.
284
285set debug notification
286show debug notification
287 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
288
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289* MI changes
290
291 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
292 "=cmd-param-changed".
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293 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
294 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
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295 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
296 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
297 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
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298 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
299 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
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300 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
301 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 302 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 303 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
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304 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
305 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
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306 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
307 library load/unload events.
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308 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
309 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
310 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
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311 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
312 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
313 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
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314 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
315 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 316
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317* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
318 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
319 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
320 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
321
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322* New remote packets
323
324QTBuffer:size
325 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
326 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
327
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328Qbtrace:bts
329 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
330 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
331 qSupported query.
332
333Qbtrace:off
334 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
335 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
336
337qXfer:btrace:read
338 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
339 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
340
80c8d323 341*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 342
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343* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
344 for more x32 ABI info.
345
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346* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
347
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348* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
349
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350* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
351 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
352 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
353 "info os files" lists file descriptors
354 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
355 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
356 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
357 "info os msg" lists message queues
358 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
359
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360* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
361 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
362 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
363 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
364 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
365 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
366
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367* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
368 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
369 record/replay support.
370
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371* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
372
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373* Python scripting
374
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375 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
376 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
377
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378 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
379
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380 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
381 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
382
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383 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
384
385 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
386 the source at which the symbol was defined.
387
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388 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
389 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
390 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
391 symbol's value.
392
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393 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
394 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
395
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396 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
397 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
398 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
399
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400 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
401 object associated with a PC value.
402
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403 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
404 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
405
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406* Go language support.
407 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
408 language.
409
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410* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
411 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
412
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413* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
414 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
415
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416* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
417 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
418 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
419 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
420 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
421 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
422
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423* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
424 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
425 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
426 build/libcpp/expr.c.
427
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428* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
429 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
430
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431* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
432 since December 2007.
433
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434* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
435 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
436 command does. For instance:
437
438 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
439
440 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
441 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
442 created, using the "condition" command.
443
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444* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
445 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
446
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447* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
448
449* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
450 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
451 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
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452 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
453 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
454 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
455 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
456 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 457
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458 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
459 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
460 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
461 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
462 the .gdb_index section.
463
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464* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
465
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466* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
467 target.
468
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469* MI changes
470
471 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
472
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473 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
474
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475* New commands
476
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477 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
478 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
479 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
480
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481 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
482 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
483
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484 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
485 several hits.
486
57651221 487 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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488 C++ and Java objects.
489
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490 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
491 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
492 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
493 configured with '--with-python'.
494
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495 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
496 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
497 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
498 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
499 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
500 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
501 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
502
503 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
504 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
505 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
506 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
507
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508 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
509 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
510 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
511 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
512
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513 ** "set print symbol"
514 "show print symbol"
515 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
516 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
517 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
518
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519* Deprecated commands
520
521 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
522 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
523
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524* New targets
525
526Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 527HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 528
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529* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
530 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
531 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
532 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
533 evaluates to true.
534
535* New options
536
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537set mips compression
538show mips compression
539 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
540 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
541 mips16
542 micromips
543 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
544
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545set breakpoint condition-evaluation
546show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 547 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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548 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
549 available mode.
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550 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
551 target.
552
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553set auto-load off
554 Disable auto-loading globally.
555
556show auto-load
557 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
558
559set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
560show auto-load gdb-scripts
561 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
562
563set auto-load python-scripts on|off
564show auto-load python-scripts
565 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
566
567set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
568show auto-load local-gdbinit
569 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
570
571set auto-load libthread-db on|off
572show auto-load libthread-db
573 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
574
7349ff92 575set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 576show auto-load scripts-directory
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577 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
578 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
579 of the directories listed by this option.
580 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
581
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582set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
583show auto-load safe-path
584 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
585 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
586
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587set debug auto-load on|off
588show debug auto-load
589 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
590
d3ce09f5 591set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 592show dprintf-style
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593 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
594 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
595 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
596 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
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597
598set dprintf-function <expr>
599show dprintf-function
600set dprintf-channel <expr>
601show dprintf-channel
602 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
603 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
604
d3ce09f5
SS
605set disconnected-dprintf on|off
606show disconnected-dprintf
607 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
608 after GDB disconnects.
609
6dea1fbd
JK
610* New configure options
611
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JK
612--with-auto-load-dir
613 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
614 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
615 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
616 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
617 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 618
6dea1fbd
JK
619--with-auto-load-safe-path
620 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 621 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
622
623--without-auto-load-safe-path
624 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
625 security feature.
626
72895ff6
LM
627* New remote packets
628
74c48cbb
PA
629z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
630
72895ff6
LM
631 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
632 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
633 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
634 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
635
9b224c5e
PA
636QProgramSignals:
637
638 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
639 program without GDB involvement.
640
8320cc4f
JK
641* New command line options
642
643--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
644 before loading inferior.
645--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
646 execute it before loading inferior.
647
8837a20f
JB
648*** Changes in GDB 7.4
649
f8eba3c6
TT
650* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
651 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
652 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
653 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
654 inferior changes.
655
1bfeeb0f
JL
656* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
657 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
658
480a3f21
PW
659* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
660 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
661 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
662 target hardware watchpoint.
663
664 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
665 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
666 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
667 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
668
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669* Python scripting
670
32d1c362 671 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 672 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
673 existing one.
674
3a7bf607 675 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
676 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
677 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
678 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
679 now "message", which just prints the error message without
680 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 681
baacfb07 682 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 683 Python API.
713389e0 684
fa3a4f15
PM
685 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
686 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 687 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
688 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
689 corresponding value.
690
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PM
691 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
692 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
693 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
694 on GDB start-up.
695
9df2fbc4
PM
696 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
697 static_block will return the global and static blocks
698 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
699 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
700
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DE
701 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
702
6839b47f
KP
703 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
704 "gdb.breakpoints".
705
cc72b2a2
KP
706 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
707 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
708 available in the CLI.
709
84ad80e6
PK
710 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
711 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
712 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
713 "some_type.items()".
714
20c168b5
KP
715 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
716 new object file.
717
03c3051a
PK
718 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
719 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
720 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
721 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
722 any anonymous fields.
723
7376e450
TT
724* MI changes
725
726 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
727 "solib-event".
728
729 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
730 "=breakpoint-modified".
731
732 ** New command -ada-task-info.
733
98a5dd13
DE
734* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
735 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
736 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
737 lives.
738
739 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
740 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
741 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
742 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
743 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
744
745 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
746 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
747
478aac75
DE
748* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
749 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
750 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
751 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
752 use this option to specify where to find it.
753
9c06b0b4
TJB
754* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
755 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
756 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
757 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
758 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
759 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
760 section in the user manual for more details.
761
03f2bd59
JK
762* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
763 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
764 become available after that.
765
71eba9c2 766* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 767
2bda9cc5
JK
768* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
769 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
770 gcc version 4.7.
771
ed59ded5
DE
772* New commands
773
774!SHELL COMMAND
775 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
776 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
777
9c06b0b4
TJB
778* Changed commands
779
780watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
781 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
782 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
783
dbaefcf7
DE
784info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
785 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
786 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
787
71eba9c2 788info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
789 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
790 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
791 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
792 name starts with a hyphen.
793
3065dfb6
SS
794collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
795 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
796 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
797 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
798 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
799 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
800 number of bytes that will be collected.
801
f196051f
SS
802tstart [NOTES]
803 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
804 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
805 setting the variable trace-notes.
806
807tstop [NOTES]
808 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
809 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
810 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
811 trace-stop-notes.
812
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KY
813* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
814 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
815 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
816 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
817 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
818 is running.
819
405f8e94
SS
820* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
821 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
822 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
823
2bda9cc5
JK
824* New options
825
45cfd468
DE
826set debug dwarf2-read
827show debug dwarf2-read
828 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
829 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
830
831set debug symtab-create
832show debug symtab-create
833 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
834 creation. The default is off.
835
baacfb07
PM
836set extended-prompt
837show extended-prompt
838 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
839 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
840 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
841 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
842 prompt is displayed.
843
2bda9cc5
JK
844set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
845show print entry-values
846 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
847 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
848 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
849
850set debug entry-values
851show debug entry-values
852 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
853 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
854
c011a4f4
DE
855set basenames-may-differ
856show basenames-may-differ
857 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
858 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
859 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
860 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
861 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
862 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
863 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
864 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
865
f196051f
SS
866set trace-user
867show trace-user
868set trace-notes
869show trace-notes
870 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
871 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
872 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
873 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
874
875set trace-stop-notes
876show trace-stop-notes
877 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
878 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
879 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
880 started by someone else.
881
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KY
882* New remote packets
883
884QTEnable
885
886 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
887
888QTDisable
889
890 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
891
f196051f
SS
892QTNotes
893
894 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
895
896qTP
897
898 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
899
405f8e94
SS
900qTMinFTPILen
901
902 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
903 be placed.
904
1a532630
PP
905* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
906 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
907
11315641
YQ
908* New targets
909
910Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
911
87326c78
DD
912* New Simulators
913
914Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
915
e8d56f18
JB
916*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
917
918* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
919
d6e00af6 920*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 921
60f98dde
MS
922* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
923 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
924 matches the given regular expression.
925
eee5b35e
DD
926* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
927
b716877b
AB
928* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
929 dumping the instruction opcodes.
930
aae1c79a
DE
931* New command line options
932
933-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
934 This is mostly for testing purposes.
935
a86caf66
DE
936* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
937 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
938
99e7ae30
DE
939* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
940 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
941 source path list instead of augmenting it.
942
4694da01
TT
943* GDB now understands thread names.
944
945 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
946 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
947
948 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
949 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
950
f4b8a18d
KW
951* OpenCL C
952 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
953 has been integrated into GDB.
954
585d1eb8
PM
955* Python scripting
956
da5d4055
PM
957 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
958 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
959 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
960
9a6f1302
PM
961 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
962 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
963 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
964 and allows for more dynamic content.
965
29703da4
PM
966 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
967 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
968 have an is_valid method.
969
350c6c65
PM
970 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
971 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
972 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
973
6e6fbe60
DE
974 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
975
585d1eb8
PM
976 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
977 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
978 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
979 that function like so:
980
981 result = some_value (10,20)
982
0e3509db
DE
983 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
984 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
985 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
986
7b51bc51
DE
987 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
988 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
989 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
990 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
991 New function: register_pretty_printer.
992
993 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
994 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
995
99e7ae30
DE
996 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
997
d8e22779
TT
998 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
999 selected thread.
1000
4694da01
TT
1001 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1002 holds the thread's name.
1003
505500db
SW
1004 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1005 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1006 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1007 The following events are currently supported:
1008 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1009 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1010 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1011
def98928
TT
1012* C++ Improvements:
1013
1014 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1015 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1016
1017 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1018
1019 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1020 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1021 was added to GCC 4.5.
1022
66cb8159
TT
1023 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1024 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1025 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1026 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1027 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1028 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1029
4aac0db7
UW
1030* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1031 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1032 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1033 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1034 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1035
283e6a52
TT
1036* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1037 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1038 execution to a label.
1039
1040* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1041 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1042 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1043 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1044
b56df873 1045* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1046 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1047 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1048 of scope.
1049
ae53ffa4
PA
1050* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1051
1052 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1053 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1054 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1055 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1056 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1057 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1058
1059 (gdb) info threads
1060 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1061
1062 While now you see this:
1063
1064 (gdb) info threads
1065 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1066
1067 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1068 dumps.
1069
1070 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1071 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1072 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1073 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1074
f1310107
TJB
1075* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1076 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1077 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1078 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1079 section in the user manual for more details.
1080
248c9dbc
JB
1081* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1082
1aee7009
JB
1083 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1084 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1085
eb826dc6
MF
1086 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1087
44603653
JB
1088* New native configurations
1089
1090ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1091
91021223
MF
1092* New targets:
1093
1094Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1095
6e1bb179
JB
1096* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1097 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1098 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1099 in the GDB user manual.
1100
50c97f38
TT
1101* Guile support was removed.
1102
448a92bf
MF
1103* New features in the GNU simulator
1104
1105 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1106
66ee2731
MF
1107 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1108
76b8507d 1109*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1110
ba25b921
PA
1111* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1112
1113 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1114 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1115 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1116 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1117 was always disabled for such configurations.
1118
4656f5c6
SW
1119* C++ Improvements:
1120
1121 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1122
1123 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1124 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1125 For example:
1126 namespace A
1127 {
1128 class B { };
1129 void foo (B) { }
1130 }
1131 ...
1132 A::B b
1133 foo(b)
1134 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1135 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1136 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1137
1138 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1139
1140 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1141 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1142 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1143 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1144 entry.
1145 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1146 mentioned flavors of operators.
1147
254e6b9e
DE
1148 ** static const class members
1149
1150 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1151 class definition has been fixed.
1152
711e434b
PM
1153* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1154
1155 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1156 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1157 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1158 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1159 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1160 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1161
0fb4aa4b
PA
1162* Static tracepoints
1163
1164 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1165 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1166 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1167 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1168 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1169 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1170 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1171 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1172 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1173 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1174 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1175 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1176 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1177 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1178 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1179 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1180 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1181 the "New remote packets" section below.
1182
ca11e899
SS
1183* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1184
1185 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1186 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1187 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1188 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1189
1190* Observer mode
1191
1192 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1193 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1194 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1195 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1196 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1197 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1198 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1199
1200* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1201 current thread.
1202
711e434b
PM
1203* New remote packets
1204
1205qGetTIBAddr
1206
1207 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1208
dde08ee1
PA
1209qRelocInsn
1210
1211 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1212 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1213 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1214 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1215 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1216 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1217
0fb4aa4b
PA
1218qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1219
1220 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1221
1222qTSTMat
1223
1224 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1225 program.
1226
1227qXfer:statictrace:read
1228
1229 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1230 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1231 to gdb's qSupported query.
1232
ca11e899
SS
1233QAllow
1234
1235 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1236
1237QTDPsrc
1238
1239 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1240 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1241
3f7b2faa
DE
1242* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1243 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1244 a directory.
1245
d337e9f0
PA
1246* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1247
0fb4aa4b
PA
1248 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1249 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1250 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1251 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1252
1253 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1254 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1255 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1256 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1257 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1258 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1259 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1260
1261 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1262 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1263
c24d0242
PM
1264 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1265
c8d5aac9
L
1266* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1267 it understands register description.
1268
7c953934
TT
1269* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1270
8685c86f
L
1271* X86 general purpose registers
1272
1273 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1274 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1275 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1276 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1277 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1278
95a42b64 1279* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1280 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1281 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1282 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1283 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1284 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1285
8bd10a10
CM
1286* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1287 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1288 in the specified file.
1289
ab38a727
PA
1290* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1291 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1292 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1293 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1294 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1295 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1296 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1297 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1298 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1299 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1300
6149aea9
PA
1301* New commands
1302
f1421989
HZ
1303eval template, expressions...
1304 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1305 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1306
ab38a727
PA
1307set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1308show target-file-system-kind
1309 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1310 names.
1311
6149aea9
PA
1312save breakpoints <filename>
1313 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1314 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1315 definitions, use the `source' command.
1316
1317`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1318is now deprecated.
1319
0fb4aa4b
PA
1320info static-tracepoint-markers
1321 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1322
1323strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1324 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1325 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1326
ca11e899
SS
1327set observer on|off
1328show observer
1329 Enable and disable observer mode.
1330
1331set may-write-registers on|off
1332set may-write-memory on|off
1333set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1334set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1335set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1336set may-interrupt on|off
1337 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1338 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1339 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1340 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1341 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1342 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1343 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1344
1345set record memory-query on|off
1346show record memory-query
1347 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1348 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1349
53a71c06
CR
1350* Changed commands
1351
1352disassemble
1353 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1354
f3e9a817
PM
1355* Python scripting
1356
9279c692
JB
1357** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1358 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1359 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1360 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1361 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1362
adc36818 1363** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1364 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1365 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1366 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1367
fa33c3cd 1368** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1369 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1370
1371** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1372
1373** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1374
967cf477
DE
1375** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1376
8a1ea21f
DE
1377** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1378 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1379 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1380
a7bdde9e
VP
1381* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1382there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1383tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1384regular breakpoints.
1385
05071a4d
PA
1386* New targets
1387
1388ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1389
6aecb9c2
JB
1390* D language support.
1391 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1392 language.
1393
431e49aa
TJB
1394* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1395 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1396 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1397 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1398 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1399
1400* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1401 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1402 conditions of the form:
1403
1404 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1405
1406 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1407 interface mentioned above.
1408
bfbf3774 1409*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1410
4eef138c
TT
1411* C++ Improvements
1412
1413 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1414
1415 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1416 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1417 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1418 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1419 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1420
4eef138c
TT
1421 ** Bug Fixes
1422
1423 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1424 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1425 qualified name.
1426
1427 ** Cast Operators
1428
1429 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1430 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1431
2d1c1221
ME
1432* New targets
1433
1434Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1435Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1436
1437* New Simulators
1438
1439Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1440Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1441
6c95b8df
PA
1442* Multi-program debugging.
1443
1444 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1445 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1446 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1447 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1448 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1449 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1450 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1451 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1452
d5551862
SS
1453* New tracing features
1454
1455 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1456
1457 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1458
1459 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1460 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1461 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1462 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1463 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1464 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1465 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1466 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1467 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1468 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1469
d5551862 1470 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1471
1472 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1473 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1474 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1475 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1476 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1477 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1478 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1479 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1480 the regular trace command.
1481
d5551862
SS
1482 ** Disconnected tracing
1483
1484 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1485 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1486 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1487 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1488 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1489
00bf0b85
SS
1490 ** Trace files
1491
1492 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1493 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1494 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1495 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1496 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1497 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1498 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1499
1500 ** Circular trace buffer
1501
1502 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1503 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1504 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1505 not be available for all target agents.
1506
21a0512e
PP
1507* Changed commands
1508
1509disassemble
1510 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1511 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1512
0fe7935b
DJ
1513info variables
1514 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1515 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1516
fb2e7cb4
JB
1517source
1518 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1519 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1520 support.
1521
1522 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1523 "set script-extension" (see below).
1524
6c95b8df
PA
1525* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1526
399cd161
MS
1527record save [<FILENAME>]
1528 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1529 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1530
1531record restore <FILENAME>
1532 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1533 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1534
6c95b8df
PA
1535add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1536 Add a new inferior.
1537
1538clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1539 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1540 inferior has loaded.
1541
1542remove-inferior ID
1543 Remove an inferior.
1544
1545maint info program-spaces
1546 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1547
9a7071a8
JB
1548set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1549show remote interrupt-sequence
1550 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1551 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1552 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1553 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1554 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1555
1556set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1557show remote interrupt-on-connect
1558 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1559 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1560 Linux kernel.
1561
1562set remotebreak [on | off]
1563show remotebreak
1564Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1565
f61e138d
SS
1566tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1567 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1568
1569info tvariables
1570 List trace state variables and their values.
1571
1572delete tvariable $NAME ...
1573 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1574
6da95a67
SS
1575teval EXPR, ...
1576 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1577 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1578
7a697b8d
SS
1579ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1580 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1581
b0f02ee9
JK
1582* New expression syntax
1583
1584 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1585 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1586
6c95b8df
PA
1587* New options
1588
1589set follow-exec-mode new|same
1590show follow-exec-mode
1591 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1592 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1593 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1594
236f1d4d
SS
1595set default-collect EXPR, ...
1596show default-collect
1597 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1598 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1599 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1600
d5551862
SS
1601set disconnected-tracing
1602show disconnected-tracing
1603 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1604 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1605 upon disconnection.
1606
4daf5ac0
SS
1607set circular-trace-buffer
1608show circular-trace-buffer
1609 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1610 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1611 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1612 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1613
fb2e7cb4
JB
1614set script-extension off|soft|strict
1615show script-extension
1616 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1617 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1618 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1619 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1620 evaluation failed.
1621 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1622
2b71fc8e
JB
1623set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1624show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1625 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1626 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1627 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1628 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1629 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1630 is on.
1631
de2e5182
TT
1632* Python API Improvements
1633
1634 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1635 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1636 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1637
1638 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1639 `is_base_class' attribute.
1640
1641 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1642
1643 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1644 evaluate an expression.
1645
f61e138d
SS
1646* New remote packets
1647
1648QTDV
1649 Define a trace state variable.
1650
1651qTV
1652 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1653
d5551862
SS
1654QTDisconnected
1655 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1656
4daf5ac0
SS
1657QTBuffer:circular
1658 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1659
d5551862
SS
1660qTfP, qTsP
1661 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1662
2d483d34
MS
1663* Bug fixes
1664
1665Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1666
6e0e5977
JB
1667Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1668much more reliable. In particular:
1669 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1670 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1671 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1672 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1673 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1674 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1675 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1676 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1677 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1678 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1679 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1680 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1681 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1682 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1683 non-threaded programs.
1684
93c26624
JK
1685PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1686This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1687libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1688executable program.
1689
abc7453d 1690*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1691
4efc6507
DE
1692* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1693dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1694them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1695for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1696"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1697
782b2b07
SS
1698* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1699breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1700or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1701the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1702for tracepoint actions.
1703
53a71c06
CR
1704* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1705raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1706modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1707
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1708* Process record and replay
1709
1710 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1711 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1712 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1713 execute commands.
1714
64644d9b
MS
1715* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1716step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1717set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1718reverse execution.
1719
b9412953
DD
1720* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1721feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
17222.6.28 or later.
1723
6c7a06a3
TT
1724* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1725target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1726char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1727literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1728U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1729`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1730system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1731the installation instructions for more information.
1732
f1838a98
UW
1733* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1734remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1735with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1736the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1737
55333a84
DE
1738* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1739and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1740
7f6a6314
PM
1741* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1742now complete on file names.
1743
65d12d83
TT
1744* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1745completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1746For instance, consider:
1747
1748 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1749 # struct example variable;
1750 (gdb) p variable.
1751
1752If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1753completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1754
edb3359d
DJ
1755* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1756the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1757
2fae03e8
TT
1758* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1759operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1760macros.
1761
47a3467a 1762* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1763the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1764implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1765
1766* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1767registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1768can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1769and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1770
08388c79
DE
1771* New remote packets
1772
1773qSearch:memory:
1774 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1775
a6f3e723
SL
1776QStartNoAckMode
1777 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1778 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1779 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1780
d7713ae0
EZ
1781vKill
1782 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1783 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1784
07e059b5
VP
1785qXfer:osdata:read
1786 Obtains additional operating system information
1787
47a3467a
PA
1788qXfer:siginfo:read
1789qXfer:siginfo:write
1790 Read or write additional signal information.
1791
060871df
PA
1792* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1793
1794 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1795 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1796 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1797
c055b101 1798* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1799DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1800
1801* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1802and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1803`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1804
31fffb02
CS
1805* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1806with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1807
88d8a8e0
JB
1808* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1809
7f99b190
JB
1810* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1811
ccd213ac
DJ
1812* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1813which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1814
1fddbabb 1815* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1816list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1817
a0ef4274
DJ
1818* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1819conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1820have also been fixed.
1821
bfb8797a 1822* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1823From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1824are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1825
71c25dea
TT
1826* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1827example, given:
1828
1829 template<typename T> class C { };
1830 C<char const *> c;
1831
1832GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1833
1834 ptype C<char const *>
1835 ptype C<char const*>
1836 ptype C<const char *>
1837 ptype C<const char*>
1838
ccd213ac
DJ
1839* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1840
1841 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1842 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1843
7ae0e2a2
UW
1844 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1845 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1846 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1847
a6f3e723
SL
1848 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1849 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1850
da8bd9a3
DJ
1851 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1852 gdbserver.
1853
d70e31dd
DE
1854 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1855 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1856
1857 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1858 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1859 as appropriate.
1860
d57a3c85
TJB
1861* Python scripting
1862
1863 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1864 available is determined at configure time.
1865
d8906c6f
TJB
1866 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1867
aadc346a
JB
1868* Ada tasking support
1869
1870 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1871 been introduced:
1872
1873 info tasks
1874 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1875 info task N
1876 Print detailed information about task number N.
1877 task
1878 Print the task number of the current task.
1879 task N
1880 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1881
adb483fe
DJ
1882* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1883add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1884
2277426b
PA
1885* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1886
1887 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1888 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1889 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1890 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1891 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1892 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1893 below.
1894
08d16641
PA
1895* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1896"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1897information.
1898
e35359c5
UW
1899* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1900to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1901architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1902See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1903more information.
1904
85e747d2
UW
1905* Multi-architecture debugging.
1906
1907 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1908 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1909 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1910 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1911 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1912
1913* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1914use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1915Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1916powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1917--enable-targets configure option.
1918
11ade57a
PA
1919* Non-stop mode debugging.
1920
1921 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1922 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1923 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1924 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1925 section in the user manual for more information.
1926
1927 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1928 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1929 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1930 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1931 extensions on linux targets.
1932
d7713ae0 1933* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1934
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1935catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1936 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1937 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1938 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1939 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1940 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1941 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1942 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1943 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1944
08388c79
DE
1945find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1946 val1 [, val2, ...]
1947 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1948
d57a3c85
TJB
1949maint set python print-stack
1950maint show python print-stack
1951 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1952
1953python [CODE]
1954 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1955
d7713ae0
EZ
1956macro define
1957macro list
1958macro undef
1959 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1960 interactively.
1961
1962info os processes
1963 Show operating system information about processes.
1964
2277426b
PA
1965info inferiors
1966 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1967
1968inferior NUM
1969 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1970
1971detach inferior NUM
1972 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1973
1974kill inferior NUM
1975 Kill inferior number NUM.
1976
d7713ae0
EZ
1977* New options
1978
3285f3fe
UW
1979set spu stop-on-load
1980show spu stop-on-load
1981 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1982
ff1a52c6
UW
1983set spu auto-flush-cache
1984show spu auto-flush-cache
1985 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1986 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1987
d7713ae0
EZ
1988set sh calling-convention
1989show sh calling-convention
1990 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1991
e0a3ce09 1992set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1993show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1994 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1995
1996set disassemble-next-line
1997show disassemble-next-line
1998 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1999 the debuggee stops.
2000
2001set remote noack-packet
2002show remote noack-packet
2003 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2004 under "New remote packets."
2005
2006set remote query-attached-packet
2007show remote query-attached-packet
2008 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2009
2010set remote read-siginfo-object
2011show remote read-siginfo-object
2012 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2013 packet.
2014
2015set remote write-siginfo-object
2016show remote write-siginfo-object
2017 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2018 packet.
2019
40ab02ce
MS
2020set remote reverse-continue
2021show remote reverse-continue
2022 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2023
2024set remote reverse-step
2025show remote reverse-step
2026 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2027
d7713ae0
EZ
2028set displaced-stepping
2029show displaced-stepping
2030 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2031 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2032 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2033
2034set debug displaced
2035show debug displaced
2036 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2037
2038maint set internal-error
2039maint show internal-error
2040 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2041
2042maint set internal-warning
2043maint show internal-warning
2044 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2045
ccd213ac
DJ
2046set exec-wrapper
2047show exec-wrapper
2048unset exec-wrapper
2049 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2050
aad4b048
JB
2051set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2052show multiple-symbols
2053 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2054 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2055 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2056
74960c60
VP
2057set breakpoint always-inserted
2058show breakpoint always-inserted
2059 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2060 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2061 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2062
0428b8f5
DJ
2063set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2064show arm fallback-mode
2065set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2066show arm force-mode
2067 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2068 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2069 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2070 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2071
10568435
JK
2072set disable-randomization
2073show disable-randomization
2074 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2075 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2076 multiple debugging sessions.
2077
d7713ae0
EZ
2078set non-stop
2079show non-stop
2080 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2081 a breakpoint.
2082
b3eb342c 2083set target-async
d7713ae0 2084show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2085 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2086 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2087 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2088 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2089
6c7a06a3
TT
2090set target-wide-charset
2091show target-wide-charset
2092 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2093 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2094
84603566
SL
2095set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2096show tcp auto-retry
2097set tcp connect-timeout
2098show tcp connect-timeout
2099 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2100 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2101 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2102
17a37d48
PP
2103set libthread-db-search-path
2104show libthread-db-search-path
2105 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2106 libthread_db.
2107
d4db2f36
PA
2108set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2109show schedule-multiple
2110 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2111 the current process.
2112
4e5d721f
DE
2113set stack-cache
2114show stack-cache
2115 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2116 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2117 affecting correctness.
2118
910c5da8
JB
2119set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2120show interactive-mode
2121 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2122 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2123 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2124 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2125 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2126
2277426b
PA
2127* Removed commands
2128
2129info forks
2130 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2131 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2132 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2133 command.
2134
2135fork NUM
2136 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2137 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2138 alias for the `fork' command.
2139
2140process PID
2141 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2142 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2143 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2144
2145delete fork NUM
2146 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2147 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2148 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2149 fork' command.
2150
2151detach fork NUM
2152 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2153 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2154 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2155 fork' command.
2156
a80b95ba
TG
2157* New native configurations
2158
2159x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2160
b8bfd3ed
JB
2161x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2162
75a2d5e7
TT
2163* New targets
2164
c28c63d8 2165Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2166x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2167x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2168S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2169
6de3146c
PA
2170* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2171 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2172
d5cbbe6e
JB
2173* Removed commands
2174
2175catch load
2176catch unload
2177 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2178
75feb17d 2179*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2180
af5ca30d
NH
2181* New native configurations
2182
2183NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2184Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2185
2186* New targets
2187
2188NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2189Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2190
7a404eba
PA
2191* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2192
2193 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2194 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2195 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2196 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2197
430ebac9
PA
2198* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2199(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2200
fe6fbf8b 2201* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2202is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2203
2204* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2205including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2206and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2207
10665d76
JB
2208* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2209accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2210more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2211
7cc46491
DJ
2212* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2213
d71340b8
DJ
2214* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2215registers on PowerPC targets.
2216
523c4513
DJ
2217* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2218targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2219
a6b151f1
DJ
2220* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2221commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2222
2d717e4f
DJ
2223* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2224extended-remote mode.
2225
24a836bd 2226* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2227The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2228error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2229The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2230
d0c678e6
UW
2231* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2232building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2233target architectures.
2234
d64a946d
TJB
2235* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2236Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2237now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2238stored in two consecutive float registers.
2239
ee163bf5
VP
2240* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2241breakpoints now.
2242
b93b6ca7 2243* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2244Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2245include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2246 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2247 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2248 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2249 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2250 of an assignment
2251 - Improved command completion in Ada
2252 - Several bug fixes
2253
d001be7a
DJ
2254* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2255process.
2256
a6b151f1
DJ
2257* New commands
2258
6d53d0af
JB
2259set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2260show print frame-arguments
2261 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2262 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2263
a6b151f1
DJ
2264remote put
2265remote get
2266remote delete
2267 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2268
2269* New MI commands
2270
2271-target-file-put
2272-target-file-get
2273-target-file-delete
2274 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2275
2276* New remote packets
2277
2278vFile:open:
2279vFile:close:
2280vFile:pread:
2281vFile:pwrite:
2282vFile:unlink:
2283 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2284
2d717e4f
DJ
2285vAttach
2286 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2287 mode.
2288
2289vRun
2290 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2291
8d5f9c6f 2292*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2293
19d378fc
MS
2294* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2295bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2296Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2297
3a40aaa0
UW
2298* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2299symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2300-Bsymbolic linker option.
2301
a6ec25f2
BW
2302* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2303recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2304is not supported.
2305
6dd09645
JB
2306* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2307frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2308
c9bb8148
DJ
2309* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
231032-bit or 64-bit register values.
2311
0d5de010
DJ
2312* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2313
23181151
DJ
2314* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2315target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2316a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2317
ea37ba09
DJ
2318* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2319automatically displayed as character or string data.
2320
2321* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2322arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2323as strings.
e1f48ead 2324
123dc839
DJ
2325* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2326for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2327only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2328
05a4558a
DJ
2329* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2330iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2331
7c963485
PA
2332* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2333ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2334has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2335
b18be20d
DJ
2336* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2337
0ca420ce
UW
2338* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2339
31d99776
DJ
2340* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2341layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2342segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2343
a4642986
MR
2344* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2345immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2346
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2347* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2348"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2349packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2350where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2351Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2352
2353* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2354(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2355
2356* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2357according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2358
c9bb8148
DJ
2359* New commands
2360
23776285
MR
2361set remoteflow
2362show remoteflow
2363 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2364 when debugging using remote targets.
2365
c9bb8148
DJ
2366set mem inaccessible-by-default
2367show mem inaccessible-by-default
2368 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2369 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2370 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2371 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2372 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2373
2374set breakpoint auto-hw
2375show breakpoint auto-hw
2376 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2377 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2378 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2379 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2380 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2381 including "next" and "finish".
2382
0e420bd8
JB
2383catch exception
2384catch exception unhandled
2385 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2386
2387catch assert
2388 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2389
f822c95b
DJ
2390set sysroot
2391show sysroot
2392 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2393 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2394 an alias to "set sysroot".
2395
83cc5c53
UW
2396info spu
2397 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2398 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2399 architecture.
2400
bd372731
MK
2401* New native configurations
2402
2403OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2404
23181151
DJ
2405set tdesc filename
2406unset tdesc filename
2407show tdesc filename
2408 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2409 not query the target for its built-in description.
2410
c9bb8148
DJ
2411* New targets
2412
54fe9172 2413OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2414MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2415Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2416
6dd09645
JB
2417* New remote packets
2418
2419QPassSignals:
2420 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2421 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2422
23181151
DJ
2423qXfer:features:read:
2424 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2425 features.
6dd09645 2426
83cc5c53
UW
2427qXfer:spu:read:
2428qXfer:spu:write:
2429 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2430 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2431
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2432qXfer:libraries:read:
2433 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2434 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2435 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2436 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2437
483367ee
DJ
2438* Removed targets
2439
2440Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2441
d08950c4
UW
2442alpha*-*-osf1*
2443alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2444d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2445hppa*-*-hiux*
2446i[34567]86-ncr-*
2447i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2448i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2449i[34567]86-*-netware*
2450i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2451i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2452i[34567]86-*-sco*
2453i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2454i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2455i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2456i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2457i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2458i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2459i[34567]86-*-isc*
2460m68*-cisco*-*
2461m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2462mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2463rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2464sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2465
7ce59000
DJ
2466* Other removed features
2467
2468target abug
2469target cpu32bug
2470target est
2471target rom68k
2472
2473 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2474
ea35711c
DJ
2475target hms
2476target e7000
2477target sh3
2478target sh3e
2479
2480 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2481 H8/300.
2482
2483target ocd
2484
2485 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2486 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2487 interfaces.
2488
7ce59000
DJ
2489DWARF 1 support
2490
2491 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2492 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2493
54d61198
DJ
2494Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2495
2496 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2497 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2498 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2499 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2500
ea35711c
DJ
2501MIPS ".pdr" sections
2502
2503 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2504 in debugging information.
2505
2506Scheme support
2507
2508 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2509 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2510
1a69e1e4
DJ
2511set mips stack-arg-size
2512set mips saved-gpreg-size
2513
2514 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2515
6dd09645 2516*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2517
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2518* New targets
2519
2520Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2521Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2522
6aec2e11
DJ
2523* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2524(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2525running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2526
2527* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2528Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2529supported.
2530
17218d91
DJ
2531* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2532broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2533
9ebce043
DJ
2534* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2535stub provides the required support.
2536
7d3d3ece
DJ
2537* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2538longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2539
4f8253f3
JB
2540* New commands
2541
2542set substitute-path
2543unset substitute-path
2544show substitute-path
2545 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2546 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2547 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2548 between compilation and debugging.
2549
9fa66fd7
AS
2550set trace-commands
2551show trace-commands
2552 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2553 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2554 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2555
1f5befc1
DJ
2556* REMOVED features
2557
2558The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2559
2ec3381a
DJ
2560Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2561an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2562
3d00d119
DJ
2563The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2564
be2a5f71
DJ
2565* New remote packets
2566
2567qSupported:
2568 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2569 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2570 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2571 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2572 target.
2573
0876f84a
DJ
2574qXfer:auxv:read:
2575 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2576 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2577
9ebce043
DJ
2578qXfer:memory-map:read:
2579 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2580 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2581
2582vFlashErase:
2583vFlashWrite:
2584vFlashDone:
2585 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2586
0876f84a
DJ
2587* Removed remote packets
2588
2589qPart:auxv:read:
2590 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2591 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2592
e374b601 2593*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2594
96309189
MS
2595* New targets
2596
2597Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2598
2599Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2600
53e5f3cf
AS
2601* New commands
2602
2603init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2604 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2605
ac264b3b
MS
2606The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2607
2608checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2609
2610restart <n> Return the program state to a
2611 previously saved state.
2612
2613info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2614
2615delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2616
2617set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2618 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2619
2620info forks List forks of the user program that
2621 are available to be debugged.
2622
2623fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2624 forks of the user program that are
2625 available to be debugged.
2626
2627delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2628 that are available to be debugged (and
2629 kill the forked process).
2630
2631detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2632 that are available to be debugged (and
2633 allow the process to continue).
2634
3950dc3f
NS
2635* New architecture
2636
2637Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2638
0ea3f30e
DJ
2639* Improved Windows host support
2640
2641GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2642native console support, and remote communications using either
2643network sockets or serial ports.
2644
f79daebb
GM
2645* Improved Modula-2 language support
2646
2647GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2648basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2649pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2650printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2651written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2652GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2653
acab6ab2
MM
2654* REMOVED features
2655
2656The ARM rdi-share module.
2657
f4267320
DJ
2658The Netware NLM debug server.
2659
53e5f3cf 2660*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2661
e0ecbda1
MK
2662* New native configurations
2663
02a677ac 2664OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2665OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2666
d64a6579
KB
2667* New targets
2668
2669Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2670
b33a6190
AS
2671* New command line options
2672
2673--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2674--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2675 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2676--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2677 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2678 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2679 with the --command (-x) option.
2680
11dced61
AC
2681* Deprecated commands removed
2682
2683The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2684removed:
2685
2686 Command Replacement
2687 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2688 othernames set arm disassembler
2689 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2690 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2691 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2692 regs info registers
2693
6fe85783
MK
2694* New BSD user-level threads support
2695
2696It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2697library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2698configurations are:
2699
2700FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2701FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2702OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2703
2704Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2705are not yet supported.
2706
5260ca71
MS
2707* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2708(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2709
e84ecc99
AC
2710* REMOVED configurations and files
2711
2712VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2713Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2714National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2715
31e35378
JB
2716* New "set print array-indexes" command
2717
2718After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2719when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2720behavior.
2721
e85e5c83
MK
2722* VAX floating point support
2723
2724GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2725
d91e9901
AS
2726* User-defined command support
2727
2728In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2729to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2730section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2731
f2cb65ca
MC
2732*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2733
f47b1503
AS
2734* New command line option
2735
2736GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2737debugging.
2738
f2cb65ca
MC
2739* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2740
2741GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2742information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2743by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2744proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2745to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2746
d08c0230
AC
2747* Internationalization
2748
2749When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2750internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2751continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2752
117ea3cf
PH
2753* Ada
2754
2755Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2756implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2757into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2758
d08c0230
AC
2759* New native configurations
2760
2761GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2762
2763* Remote 'p' packet
2764
2765GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2766packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2767
2768* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2769
2770GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2771The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2772features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2773i386 application).
2774
2775GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2776compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2777continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2778configurations:
2779
2780hppa-*-hpux
2781ia64-*-aix
2782mips-*-irix*
2783*-*-lynx
2784mips-*-linux-gnu
2785sds protocol
2786xdr protocol
2787powerpc bdm protocol
2788
2789Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2790made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2791
2792* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2793
2794Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2795been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2796configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2797permanently REMOVED.
2798
2799h8300-*-*
2800mcore-*-*
2801mn10300-*-*
2802ns32k-*-*
2803sh64-*-*
2804v850-*-*
2805
ebb7c577
AC
2806*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2807
2808* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2809
2810When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2811heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2812been fixed.
2813
2814* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2815
2816When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2817fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2818IRIX long double values).
2819
2820* VAX and "next"
2821
2822A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2823command. This problem has been fixed.
2824
860660cb 2825*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2826
0dea2468
AC
2827* Fix for ``many threads''
2828
2829On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2830rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2831error message:
2832
2833 ptrace: No such process.
2834 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2835
2836This problem has been fixed.
2837
2c07db7a
AC
2838* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2839
2840Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2841GDB to dump core).
2842
c23968a2
JB
2843* New ``start'' command.
2844
2845This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2846
71009278
MK
2847* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2848
2849Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2850live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2851platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2852
2853FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2854FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2855NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2856NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2857NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2858OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2859OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2860OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2861OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2862
3c0b7db2
AC
2863* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2864
2865Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2866These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2867of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2868call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2869signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2870
73cc75f3
AC
2871Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2872features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2873include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2874
7243600a
BF
2875* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2876
6f606e1c
MK
2877* New native configurations
2878
97dc871c 2879GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2880OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2881OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2882OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2883OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2884NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2885OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2886
a1b461bf
AC
2887* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2888
2889GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2890The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2891including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2892migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2893compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2894work, was also included.
2895
2896GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2897module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2898
2899h8300-*-*
2900mcore-*-*
2901mn10300-*-*
2902ns32k-*-*
2903sh64-*-*
2904v850-*-*
2905xstormy16-*-*
2906
2907Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2908made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2909
3c7012f5
AC
2910* REMOVED configurations and files
2911
2912Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2913Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2914Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2915Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2916Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2917AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2918Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2919decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2920riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2921sonymips mips-sony-*
2922sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2923
e5fe55f7
AC
2924*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2925
2926* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2927
2928The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2929GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2930command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2931program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2932with GDB".
2933
2934* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2935
2936Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2937libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2938cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2939GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2940shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2941the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2942are created.
2943
2944Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2945
2946* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2947
2948The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2949non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2950compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2951
2952* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2953
2954Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2955wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2956
2957* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2958
2959The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2960permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2961systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2962
2963* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2964
2965Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2966has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2967
2968* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2969
2970GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2971its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2972panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2973
2974* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2975
2976When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2977by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2978not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2979
faae5abe 2980*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2981
9175c9a3
MC
2982* Removed --with-mmalloc
2983
2984Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2985conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2986
3cc87ec0
MK
2987* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2988
2989The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2990the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2991and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2992you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2993
f0424ef6
MK
2994* Revised SPARC target
2995
2996The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2997FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2998support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2999from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3000(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3001
59659be2
ILT
3002* New C++ demangler
3003
3004GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3005names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3006with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3007programs.
3008
9e08b29b
DJ
3009* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3010
3011GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3012arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3013encountered these.
3014
8dfe8985
DC
3015* C++ nested types and namespaces
3016
3017GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3018improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3019is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3020Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3021namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3022"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3023frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3024if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3025GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3026
cced5e27
MK
3027* New native configurations
3028
3029NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3030OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3031OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3032OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3033OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3034
b4b4b794
KI
3035* New debugging protocols
3036
3037M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3038
7989c619
AC
3039* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3040
3041The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3042and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3043tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3044
5994185b
AC
3045* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3046
3047Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3048been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3049configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3050permanently REMOVED.
3051
3052Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3053Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3054Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3055Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3056Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3057AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3058Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3059decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3060riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3061sonymips mips-sony-*
3062sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3063
0ddabb4c
AC
3064* REMOVED configurations and files
3065
3066SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3067SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3068Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3069Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3070H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3071HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3072HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3073HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3074PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3075386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3076Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3077 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3078 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3079SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3080SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3081Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3082Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3083
c7f1390e
DJ
3084*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3085
1fe43d45
AC
3086* Objective-C
3087
3088Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3089integrated into GDB.
3090
e6beb428
AC
3091* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3092
3093DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3094information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3095By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3096backtraces.
3097
3098The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3099have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3100DWARF 2 CFI support.
3101
3102* Hosted file I/O.
3103
3104GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3105file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3106remote protocol documentation for details.
3107
3108* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3109
3110All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3111architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3112to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3113ppc32 on ppc64).
3114
3115* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3116
3117GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3118per-thread variables.
3119
3120* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3121
3122GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3123GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3124
3125* Separate debug info.
3126
3127GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3128automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3129of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3130system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3131and optional debug files.
3132
3133* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3134
3135DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3136describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3137debugger.
3138
3139GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3140for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3141
3142* Java
3143
3144A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3145Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3146considered "useable".
3147
85f8f974
DJ
3148* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3149
3150The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3151commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3152kernel.
3153
0fac0b41
DJ
3154* GDB supports logging output to a file
3155
3156There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3157used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3158
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3159* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3160
3161The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3162disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3163command.
3164
e286caf2 3165* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3166
3167The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3168registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3169
d28f9cdf
DJ
3170* Profiling support
3171
3172A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3173be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3174session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3175"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3176data, for more informative profiling results.
3177
da0f9dcd
AC
3178* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3179
3180The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3181option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3182"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3183
3184Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3185removed.
3186
fb9b6b35
JJ
3187Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3188Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3189Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3190 in a subsequent -var-update.
3191
954a4db8
MK
3192* New native configurations.
3193
3194FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3195
6760f9e6
JB
3196* Multi-arched targets.
3197
b4263afa 3198HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3199Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3200
1b831c93
AC
3201* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3202
3203Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3204been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3205configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3206permanently REMOVED.
3207
8b0e5691 3208Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3209Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3210H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3211HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3212HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3213HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3214PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3215Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3216 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3217 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3218Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3219Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3220
5835abe7
NC
3221* REMOVED configurations and files
3222
3223V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3224Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3225IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3226i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3227i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3228i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3229HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3230 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3231 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3232Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3233Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3234Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3235OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3236I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3237
a094c6fb
AC
3238* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3239
3240The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3241the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3242context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3243address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3244The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3245
299ffc64 3246*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3247
46248966
AC
3248* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3249
3250When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3251`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3252in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3253library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3254shared libs like mad''.
3255
b9d14705 3256* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3257
b9d14705
DJ
3258Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3259the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3260arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3261powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3262
e0e9281e
JB
3263* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3264
3265GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3266and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3267they expand.
3268
dd73b9bb
AC
3269The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3270invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3271
3272The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3273macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3274
e0e9281e
JB
3275Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3276information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3277your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3278information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3279
2250ee0c
CV
3280* Multi-arched targets.
3281
6e3ba3b8
JT
3282DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3283DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3284NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3285National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3286Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3287Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3288
cd9bfe15 3289* New targets.
e33ce519 3290
456f8b9d
DB
3291Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3292
e33ce519 3293
da8ca43d
JT
3294* New native configurations
3295
3296Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3297SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3298MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3299UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3300
cd9bfe15
AC
3301* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3302
3303Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3304been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3305configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3306permanently REMOVED.
3307
92eb23c5 3308Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3309OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3310IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3311Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3312Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3313Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3314i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3315i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3316i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3317HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3318 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3319 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3320I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3321
db034ac5
AC
3322* OBSOLETE languages
3323
3324CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3325
cd9bfe15
AC
3326* REMOVED configurations and files
3327
3328AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3329A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3330AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3331AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3332AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3333
3334testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3335
20f01a46
DH
3336* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3337
3338This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3339commands. The default is 1024.
3340
a5941fbf
MK
3341* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3342
3343Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3344
89743e04
MS
3345* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3346
3347These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3348to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3349from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3350
9fb14e79
JB
3351* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3352
3353The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3354including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3355of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3356
2037aebb
AC
3357*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3358
3359* New targets.
3360
3361Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3362
3363* Bug fixes
3364
3365gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3366mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3367Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3368
3369gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3370dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3371Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3372
3373Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3374Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3375By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3376
3377i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3378avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3379By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3380
37057839 3381*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3382
1a703748
MS
3383* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3384
3385This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3386really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3387In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3388target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3389This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3390(notably embedded) targets.
3391
cefd4ef5
MS
3392* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3393
55241689
AC
3394This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3395process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3396GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3397hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3398
352ed7b4
MS
3399* New command line option
3400
3401GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3402
3403* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3404
3405There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3406command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3407a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3408be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3409open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3410issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3411a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3412it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3413GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3414is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3415
fe419ffc
RE
3416* Changes in ARM configurations.
3417
3418Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3419configuration is fully multi-arch.
3420
eb7cedd9
MK
3421* New native configurations
3422
fe419ffc 3423ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3424x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3425AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3426Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3427
c9f63e6b
CV
3428* New targets
3429
3430Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3431
9b4ff276
AC
3432* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3433
3434Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3435been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3436configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3437permanently REMOVED.
3438
3439AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3440A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3441AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3442AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3443AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3444
b4ceaee6 3445testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3446
e2caac18
AC
3447* REMOVED configurations and files
3448
3449TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3450WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3451PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3452PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3453PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3454Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3455Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3456 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3457SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3458Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3459Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3460ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3461Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3462
c2a727fa
TT
3463* Changes to command line processing
3464
3465The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3466for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3467
467d8519
TT
3468* Changes to key bindings
3469
3470There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3471
7072a954
AC
3472*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3473
3474Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3475
3476Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3477corrupted.
3478
3479Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3480
3481Numerous documentation fixes.
3482
3483Numerous testsuite fixes.
3484
34f47bc4 3485*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3486
3487* New native configurations
3488
3489Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3490x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3491MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3492MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3493ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3494s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3495
bf64bfd6
AC
3496* New targets
3497
def90278 3498Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3499CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3500UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3501
17e78a56 3502* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3503
3504x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3505Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3506Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3507 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3508TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3509WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3510Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3511PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3512PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3513PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3514SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3515Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3516ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3517Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3518
17e78a56
AC
3519stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3520kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3521
7fcca85b
AC
3522Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3523been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3524configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3525permanently REMOVED.
3526
a196c81c 3527* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3528
3529Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3530Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3531Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3532ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3533Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3534ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3535
6d6b80e5 3536* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3537
6d6b80e5 3538GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3539sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3540present.
3541
bf64bfd6
AC
3542* Other news:
3543
e23194cb
EZ
3544* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3545
3546* The MI enabled by default.
3547
3548The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3549revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3550engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3551using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3552which is now deprecated.
3553
3554* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3555
3556GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3557main features are supported:
3558
3559 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3560
3561 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3562 extension;
3563
3564 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3565
3566 - a Pascal expression parser.
3567
3568However, some important features are not yet supported.
3569
3570 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3571
3572 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3573
3574 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3575 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3576
3577 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3578
3579 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3580
3581* Changes in completion.
3582
3583Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3584to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3585users expect at the shell prompt.
3586
3587Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3588`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3589program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3590files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3591be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3592considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3593name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3594
3595`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3596
3597* New platform-independent commands:
3598
3599It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3600hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3601documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3602
3603* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3604
d7275149
MK
3605Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3606revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3607many threads as your system allows you to have.
3608
e23194cb
EZ
3609Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3610
d7275149
MK
3611Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3612multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3613
3614* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3615
3616Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3617
e23194cb
EZ
3618GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3619debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3620supported.)
3621
3622* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3623
3624Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3625breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3626implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3627put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3628and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3629registers.
3630
3631The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3632debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3633watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3634
3635* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3636
3637New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3638the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3639
3640New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3641display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3642IDT.
3643
3644New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3645from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3646New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3647a given linear address.
3648
3649GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3650program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3651which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3652
3653DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3654
6c56c069
EZ
3655It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3656
e23194cb
EZ
3657* Changes in documentation.
3658
3659All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3660Documentation License.
3661
3662Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3663manual.
3664
3665TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3666
3667Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3668manual.
3669
3670The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3671documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3672hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3673
5d6640b1
AC
3674* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3675
3676The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3677``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3678contents of this file.
3679
1a1d8446
AC
3680* gdba.el deleted
3681
3682GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3683
9debab2f 3684*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3685
c63ce875
EZ
3686* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3687
3688Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3689programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3690displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3691greater level of detail.
3692
3693* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3694
3695It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3696bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3697on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3698written.
3699
3700* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3701
3702The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3703necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3704machines ``out of the box''.
3705
3706The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3707possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3708signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3709would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3710interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3711
3712It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3713standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3714even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3715and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3716terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3717
3718The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3719enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3720also works.
3721
3722DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3723GDB.
3724
3725It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3726directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3727times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3728breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3729
ed9a39eb
JM
3730* New native configurations
3731
3732ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3733PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3734
7a292a7a
SS
3735* New targets
3736
96baa820 3737Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3738x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3739PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3740TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3741
085dd6e6
JM
3742* OBSOLETE configurations
3743
3744Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3745Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3746Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3747ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3748Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3749
9debab2f
AC
3750Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3751but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3752these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3753be permanently REMOVED.
3754
5330533d
SS
3755* Gould support removed
3756
3757Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3758
bc9e5bbf
AC
3759* New features for SVR4
3760
3761On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3762without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3763load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3764
3765* Many C++ enhancements
3766
3767C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3768in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3769
adf40b2e
JM
3770* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3771
3772A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3773sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3774with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3775``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3776
3777 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3778 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3779
43e526b9
JM
3780* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3781
3782A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3783expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3784instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3785
3786The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3787added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3788
96baa820
JM
3789* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3790
3791The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3792``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3793include ``set remote P-packet''.
3794
11cf8741
JM
3795* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3796
3797The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3798accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3799``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3800
7876dd43
DB
3801* ``apropos'' command added.
3802
3803The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3804documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3805try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3806
bc9e5bbf
AC
3807* New MI interface
3808
3809A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3810interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3811process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3812"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3813enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3814
3815 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3816
c906108c
SS
3817*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3818
3819* New native configurations
3820
3821HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3822HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3823M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3824
3825* New targets
3826
3827Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3828Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3829Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3830
3831* OBSOLETE configurations
3832
3833Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3834
3835Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3836but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3837these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3838be permanently REMOVED.
3839
3840* ANSI/ISO C
3841
3842As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3843buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3844containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3845use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3846available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3847configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3848information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3849already.
3850
3851* Readline 2.2
3852
3853GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3854
3855* set extension-language
3856
3857You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3858languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3859you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3860 set extension-language .c c++
3861The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3862and their associated languages.
3863
3864* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3865
3866When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3867you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3868PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3869
3870 set processor NAME
3871
3872sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3873following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3874
3875 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3876 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3877 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3878 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3879 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3880 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3881 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3882 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3883 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3884 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3885 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3886
3887At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3888special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3889registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3890only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3891
3892* HP-UX support
3893
3894Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3895more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3896library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3897support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3898for xdb and dbx commands.
3899
3900* Catchpoints
3901
3902HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3903generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3904to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3905
3906This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3907argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3908output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3909
3910* Debugging across forks
3911
3912On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3913in the inferior.
3914
3915* TUI
3916
3917HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3918it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3919configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3920
3921* GDB remote protocol additions
3922
3923A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3924Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3925fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3926allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3927
3928For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3929full 64-bit address. The command
3930
3931 set remoteaddresssize 32
3932
3933can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3934the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3935will be discarded.
3936
3937In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3938command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3939
3940 maint packet heythere
3941
3942sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3943disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3944time.
3945
3946The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3947target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3948downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3949
3950* Tracing can collect general expressions
3951
3952You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3953further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3954doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3955
3956* mask-address variable for Mips
3957
3958For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3959a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3960of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3961
3962* Higher serial baud rates
3963
3964GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3965230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3966to achieve all of these rates.)
3967
3968* i960 simulator
3969
3970The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3971builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3972
3973
3974*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3975
3976* New native configurations
3977
3978Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3979Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3980Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3981PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3982PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3983Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3984Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3985
3986* New targets
3987
3988Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3989Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3990Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3991Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3992MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3993MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3994MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3995Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3996Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3997Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3998NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3999
4000* New debugging protocols
4001
4002ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4003M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4004DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4005PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4006PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4007Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4008
4009* DWARF 2
4010
4011All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4012format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4013information.
4014
4015* Java frontend
4016
4017GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4018only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4019
4020* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4021
4022For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4023loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4024locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4025
4026* Live range splitting
4027
4028GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4029range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4030more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4031
4032* Hurd support
4033
4034GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4035updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4036
4037* ARM Thumb support
4038
4039GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4040instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4041instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4042accordingly.
4043
4044* MIPS16 support
4045
4046GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4047instruction set.
4048
4049* Overlay support
4050
4051GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4052linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4053will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4054control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4055additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4056in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4057
4058* info symbol
4059
4060The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4061the symbol at the specified address.
4062
4063* Trace support
4064
4065The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4066asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4067extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4068includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4069file tracepoint.c for more details.
4070
4071* MIPS simulator
4072
4073Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4074by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4075of most MIPS variants.
4076
4077* Sparc simulator
4078
4079Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4080by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4081Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4082
4083* set architecture
4084
4085For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4086basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4087architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4088the possible architectures.
4089
4090*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4091
4092* New native configurations
4093
4094Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4095M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4096PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4097PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4098PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4099RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4100
4101* New targets
4102
4103ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4104I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4105MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4106MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4107PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4108Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4109Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4110
4111* PowerPC simulator
4112
4113The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4114contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4115PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4116basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4117performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4118
4119* Solaris 2.5
4120
4121GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4122
4123* Windows 95/NT native
4124
4125GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4126To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4127which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4128Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4129ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4130
4131* dont-repeat command
4132
4133If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4134command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4135useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4136extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4137
4138* Send break instead of ^C
4139
4140The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4141rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4142GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4143
4144* Remote protocol timeout
4145
4146The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4147that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4148to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4149
4150* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4151
4152By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4153loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4154stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4155when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4156in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4157
4158Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4159/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4160automatically on hpux10.
4161
4162* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4163
4164Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4165
4166* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4167
4168When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4169may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4170the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4171every character. The default value is 1050.
4172
4173* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4174
4175If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4176a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4177replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4178details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4179remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4180to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4181
4182* Speedups for remote debugging
4183
4184GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4185the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4186and more efficient S-record downloading.
4187
4188* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4189
4190GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4191Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4192
4193*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4194
4195* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4196
4197The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4198can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4199
4200* Remote targets use caching
4201
4202Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4203remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4204it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4205debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4206off' turns the the data cache off.
4207
4208* Remote targets may have threads
4209
4210The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4211in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4212gdb/remote.c for details.
4213
4214* NetROM support
4215
4216If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4217support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4218acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4219write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4220support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4221another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4222sequence is something like
4223
4224 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4225 load <prog>
4226 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4227
4228* Macintosh host
4229
4230GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4231may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4232it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4233available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4234device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4235directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4236scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4237mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4238
4239* Autoconf
4240
4241GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4242but does simplify configuration and building.
4243
4244* hpux10
4245
4246GDB now supports hpux10.
4247
4248*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4249
4250* New native configurations
4251
4252x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4253x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4254NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4255Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4256
4257* New targets
4258
4259A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4260HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4261CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4262PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4263WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4264
4265* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4266
4267GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4268possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4269filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4270the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4271if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4272
4273* Arguments to user-defined commands
4274
4275User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4276Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4277trivial example:
4278define adder
4279 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4280
4281To execute the command use:
4282adder 1 2 3
4283
4284Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4285Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4286use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4287
4288* New `if' and `while' commands
4289
4290This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4291commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4292expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4293execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4294terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4295`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4296if the expression is zero.
4297
4298* Fortran source language mode
4299
4300GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4301Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4302variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4303with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4304Fortran compilers.
4305
4306* Better HPUX support
4307
4308Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4309running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4310processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4311for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4312that behavior do the following before running the program:
4313
4314 adb -w a.out
4315 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4316 control-d
4317
4318This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4319To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4320
4321 adb -w a.out
4322 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4323 control-d
4324
4325You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4326the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4327external linkage.
4328
4329GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4330HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4331
4332* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4333
4334You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4335commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4336current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4337"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4338associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4339configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4340
4341* New DOS host serial code
4342
4343This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4344no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4345a PC's serial port.
4346
4347*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4348
4349* New "complete" command
4350
4351This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4352were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4353
4354* Trailing space optional in prompt
4355
4356"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4357allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4358
4359* Breakpoint hit counts
4360
4361"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4362has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4363can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4364to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4365less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4366that breakpoint.
4367
4368* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4369
4370"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4371an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4372arrays actually contain only short strings.
4373
4374* Shared library breakpoints
4375
4376In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4377breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4378
4379* Hardware watchpoints
4380
4381There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4382targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4383
55241689 4384Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4385
4386* Annotations
4387
4388Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4389and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4390
4391* Improved Irix 5 support
4392
4393GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4394
4395* Improved HPPA support
4396
4397GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4398
4399* New native configurations
4400
4401Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4402HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4403Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4404RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4405
4406* New targets
4407
4408OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4409MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4410Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4411
4412* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4413
4414There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4415This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4416
4417* Fixes
4418
4419As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4420and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4421
4422*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4423
4424* Irix 5 is now supported
4425
4426* HPPA support
4427
4428GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4429to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4430GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4431of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4432can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4433
4434
4435*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4436
4437* User visible changes:
4438
4439* Remote Debugging
4440
4441The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4442target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4443debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4444integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4445debugging info for the mips target).
4446
4447* DEC Alpha native support
4448
4449GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4450debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4451work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4452Alpha-specific notes.
4453
4454* Preliminary thread implementation
4455
4456GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4457
4458* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4459
4460This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4461to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4462for details).
4463
4464* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4465
4466This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4467mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4468call methods, ...etc.
4469
4470*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4471
4472 * User visible changes:
4473
4474Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4475supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4476other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4477somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4478
4479Filename completion now works.
4480
4481When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4482arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4483addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4484
4485All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4486vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4487should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4488your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4489to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4490
4491 * DEC alpha support
4492
4493This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4494cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4495
4496
4497*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4498
4499 * Testsuite
4500
4501This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4502The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4503via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4504
4505 * C++ demangling
4506
4507'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4508emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4509Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4510disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4511use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4512
4513 * Simulators
4514
4515GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4516So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4517Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4518
4519 * New targets supported
4520
4521H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4522H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4523SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4524Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4525IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4526
4527Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4528version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4529GO32 memory extender.
4530
4531 * New remote protocols
4532
4533MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4534
4535 * New source languages supported
4536
4537This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4538used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4539into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4540
4541
4542*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4543
4544 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4545
4546GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4547version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4548University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4549compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4550format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4551(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4552
4553Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4554
4555 * Faster and better demangling
4556
4557We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4558demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4559character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4560only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4561This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4562increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4563symbol lookups.
4564
4565`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4566from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4567compiler does not actually implement.
4568
4569 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4570
4571In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4572inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4573recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4574very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4575The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4576circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4577fix.
4578
4579The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4580release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4581
4582 * Improved configure script
4583
4584The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4585you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4586host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4587done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4588
4589We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4590version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4591`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4592The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4593only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4594We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4595
4596 * Documentation improvements
4597
4598There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4599produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4600before submitting changes.
4601
4602The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4603M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4604`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4605you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4606a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4607
4608*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4609We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4610been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4611or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4612`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4613around this problem.
4614
4615 * New features
4616
4617GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4618the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4619`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4620the target program.
4621
4622The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4623how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4624
4625 * New native hosts supported
4626
4627HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4628386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4629
4630 * New targets supported
4631
4632AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4633
4634 * New file formats supported
4635
4636BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4637HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4638
4639 * Major bug fixes
4640
4641Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4642
4643We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4644printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4645
4646We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4647for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4648release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4649
4650You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4651will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4652
4653We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4654for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4655especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4656libraries.
4657
4658The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4659information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4660command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4661any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4662when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4663
4664 * Internal improvements
4665
4666GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4667debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4668
4669GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4670Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4671symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4672contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4673shared code that handles any of them.
4674
4675 * New command line options
4676
4677We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4678
4679 * Mmalloc licensing
4680
4681The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4682General Public License.
4683
4684*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4685
4686 * Host/native/target split
4687
4688GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4689hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4690target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4691local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4692ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4693
4694The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4695GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4696is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4697code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4698any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4699built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4700handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4701
4702GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4703It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4704plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4705
4706 * New hosts supported
4707
4708HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4709386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4710386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4711
4712 * New targets supported
4713
4714Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
471568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4716
4717 * New native hosts supported
4718
4719386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4720 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4721386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4722
4723 * New file formats supported
4724
4725BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4726supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4727format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4728
4729 * New commands
4730
4731`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4732`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4733These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4734
4735`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4736
4737You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4738scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4739prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4740executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4741
4742 * C++ improvements
4743
4744We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4745info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4746symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4747
4748Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4749
4750 * Major bug fixes
4751
4752The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4753fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4754by the compiler.
4755
4756We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4757support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4758
4759John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4760slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4761that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4762purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4763the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4764mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4765
4766Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4767about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4768completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4769we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4770
4771 * AMD 29k support
4772
4773A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4774specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4775calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4776usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4777in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4778
4779We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4780Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4781of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4782resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4783
4784 * Remote interfaces
4785
4786We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4787with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4788message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4789This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4790needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4791breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4792each instruction being stepped through.
4793
4794The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4795registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4796
4797There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4798find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4799Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4800processor with a serial port.
4801
4802 * Configuration
4803
4804Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4805`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4806supported, and what files each one uses.
4807
4808 * Library changes
4809
4810There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4811disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4812Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4813disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4814
4815The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4816Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4817can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4818grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4819
4820 * Documentation
4821
4822The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4823reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4824as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4825encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4826system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4827bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4828
4829And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4830
4831
4832*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4833
4834 * Better support for C++ function names
4835
4836GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4837names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4838(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4839single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4840Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4841
4842GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4843the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4844You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4845lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4846for the list of formats.
4847
4848 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4849
4850Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4851C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4852directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4853can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4854usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4855about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4856this problem.)
4857
4858 * New 'maintenance' command
4859
4860All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4861the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4862can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4863
4864 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4865 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4866 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4867 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4868 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4869 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4870
4871The following commands are new:
4872
4873 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4874 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4875 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4876
4877 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4878
4879We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4880(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4881be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4882read after argv processing.
4883
4884 * New hosts supported
4885
4886Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4887
55241689 4888GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4889
4890We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4891is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4892for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4893masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4894fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4895It costs extra.
4896
4897 * New targets supported
4898
4899Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4900
4901 * More smarts about finding #include files
4902
4903GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4904all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4905greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4906especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4907the one that contains your sources.
4908
4909We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4910breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4911try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4912
4913 * Interesting infernals change
4914
4915GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4916section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4917target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4918stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4919
4920 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4921
4922There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4923 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4924 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4925
4926See the ChangeLog for details.
4927
4928*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4929
4930 * New machines supported (host and target)
4931
4932IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4933
4934SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4935
4936 * New malloc package
4937
4938GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4939Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4940capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4941This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4942pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4943more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4944
4945 * info proc
4946
4947The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4948'help info proc' for details.
4949
4950 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4951
4952The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4953Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4954possible.
4955
4956 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4957
4958Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4959support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4960conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4961environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4962that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4963in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4964
4965 * Cross byte order fixes
4966
4967Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4968targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4969
4970 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4971
4972If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4973system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4974`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4975program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4976called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4977Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4978and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4979the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4980option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4981starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4982
4983You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4984the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4985information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4986slower, but makes future operations faster.
4987
4988The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4989build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4990A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4991use is:
4992
4993 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4994
4995The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4996It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4997shared across multiple host platforms.
4998
4999 * longjmp() handling
5000
5001GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5002siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5003all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5004platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5005
5006 * Solaris 2.0
5007
5008Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5009this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5010reading symbols.
5011
5012 * Bug fixes
5013
5014As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5015People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5016crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5017
5018*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5019
5020 * New machines supported (host and target)
5021
5022SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5023 (except core files)
5024BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5025Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5026
5027 * New machines supported (target)
5028
5029AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5030
5031 * C++ support
5032
5033GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5034The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5035per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5036
5037GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5038`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5039extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5040good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5041will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5042released.
5043
5044 * New features for SVR4
5045
5046GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5047shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5048only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5049
5050The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5051on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5052it prints the address mappings of the process.
5053
5054If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5055bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5056
5057 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5058
5059Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5060now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5061skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5062make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5063same code linked statically.
5064
5065 * New Getopt
5066
5067GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5068version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5069continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5070Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5071added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5072future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5073
5074 * Bugs fixed
5075
5076The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5077Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5078See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5079
5080
5081*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5082
5083 * New machines supported (host and target)
5084
5085Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5086NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5087Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5088
5089 * Almost SCO Unix support
5090
5091We had hoped to support:
5092SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5093(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5094that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5095about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5096
5097 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5098
5099GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5100debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5101is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5102send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5103reqired (if any).
5104
5105 * New Readline
5106
5107GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5108is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5109required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5110
5111 * Bugs fixed
5112
5113The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5114Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5115See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5116
5117 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5118
5119GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5120supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5121symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5122
5123Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5124mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5125debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5126mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5127version 2.
5128
5129Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5130really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5131line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5132variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5133situation somewhat.
5134
5135When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5136However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5137methods.
5138
5139We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5140DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5141encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5142
5143
5144*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5145
5146 * Improved configuration
5147
5148Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5149Porting BFD is simpler.
5150
5151 * Stepping improved
5152
5153The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5154of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5155in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5156function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5157
5158 * Bug fixing
5159
5160Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5161
5162 * New host supported (not target)
5163
5164Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5165
5166
5167*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5168
5169 * Multiple source language support
5170
5171GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5172It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5173and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5174language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5175You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5176`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5177
5178 * GDB and Modula-2
5179
5180GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5181currently under development at the State University of New York at
5182Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5183continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5184
5185Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5186debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5187symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5188
5189There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5190in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5191
5192 * set write on/off
5193
5194GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5195a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5196the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5197by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5198effect immediately.
5199
5200 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5201
5202When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5203shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5204The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5205examining core files.
5206
5207 * set listsize
5208
5209You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5210The default is 10.
5211
5212 * New machines supported (host and target)
5213
5214SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5215Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5216Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5217
5218 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5219
5220IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5221
5222 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5223
5224AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5225AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5226Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5227
5228 * New remote interfaces
5229
5230AMD 29000 Adapt
5231AMD 29000 Minimon
5232
5233
5234*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5235
5236 * New Facilities
5237
5238Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5239
5240Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5241target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5242is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5243remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5244remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5245also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5246using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5247stub on the target system.
5248
5249New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5250
5251GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5252library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5253object file types such as a.out and coff.
5254
5255There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5256refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5257
5258
5259 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5260
5261All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5262by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5263
5264For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5265``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5266Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5267
5268What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5269print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5270will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5271all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5272
5273confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5274 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5275 it is already running. Default is ON.
5276
5277editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5278 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5279 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5280 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5281 Default is ON.
5282
5283history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5284 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5285 or the value of the environment variable
5286 GDBHISTFILE.
5287
5288history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5289 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5290 HISTSIZE.
5291
5292history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5293 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5294 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5295
5296history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5297 history expansion will be performed on
5298 command line input. The default is OFF.
5299
5300radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5301 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5302 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5303
5304height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5305 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5306 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5307 variable TERM.
5308
5309width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5310 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5311 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5312 variable TERM.
5313
5314Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5315``set width'' instead.
5316
5317print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5318 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5319 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5320 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5321
5322print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5323 is OFF.
5324
5325print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5326 "raw" form if off.
5327
5328print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5329 like instructions.
5330
5331print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5332
5333
5334 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5335
5336The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5337new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5338are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5339window.
5340
5341
5342 * Support for Shared Libraries
5343
5344GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5345Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5346before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5347happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5348At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5349from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5350shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5351It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5352
5353sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5354 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5355 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5356
5357info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5358
5359
5360 * Watchpoints
5361
5362A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5363expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5364tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5365quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5366problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5367more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5368
5369watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5370
5371info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5372
5373delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5374disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5375enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5376
5377
5378 * C++ multiple inheritance
5379
5380When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5381for C++ programs.
5382
5383 * C++ exception handling
5384
5385Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5386ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5387the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5388handler's context).
5389
5390catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5391 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5392 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5393
5394info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5395 current stack frame.
5396
5397
5398 * Minor command changes
5399
5400The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5401command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5402is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5403
5404The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5405at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5406frames without printing.
5407
5408 * New directory command
5409
5410'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5411The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5412about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5413with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5414find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5415
5416 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5417
5418For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5419for more details.
5420
5421GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5422two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5423Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5424where the program that you are debugging will run.
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