2005-11-15 Andrew Stubbs <andrew.stubbs@st.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 6.3
5
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6* New native configurations
7
02a677ac 8OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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9OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
10
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11* New targets
12
13Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
14
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15* New command line options
16
17--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
18--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
19 the child (debugged) program exited with.
20--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
21 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
22 specified multiple times and in conjunction
23 with the --command (-x) option.
24
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25* Deprecated commands removed
26
27The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
28removed:
29
30 Command Replacement
31 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
32 othernames set arm disassembler
33 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
34 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
35 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
36 regs info registers
37
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38* New BSD user-level threads support
39
40It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
41library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
42configurations are:
43
44FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
45FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
46OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
47
48Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
49are not yet supported.
50
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51* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
52(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
53
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54* REMOVED configurations and files
55
56VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
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57Renesas H8/300S h8300*-*-*
58Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
59Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
60National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
61NEC V850 v850-*-*
156a53ca 62
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63* New "set print array-indexes" command
64
65After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
66when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
67behavior.
68
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69* VAX floating point support
70
71GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
72
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73*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
74
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75* New command line option
76
77GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
78debugging.
79
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80* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
81
82GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
83information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
84by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
85proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
86to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 87
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88* Internationalization
89
90When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
91internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
92continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
93
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94* Ada
95
96Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
97implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
98into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
99
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100* New native configurations
101
102GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
103
104* Remote 'p' packet
105
106GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
107packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
108
109* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
110
111GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
112The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
113features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
114i386 application).
115
116GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
117compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
118continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
119configurations:
120
121hppa-*-hpux
122ia64-*-aix
123mips-*-irix*
124*-*-lynx
125mips-*-linux-gnu
126sds protocol
127xdr protocol
128powerpc bdm protocol
129
130Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
131made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
132
133* OBSOLETE configurations and files
134
135Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
136been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
137configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
138permanently REMOVED.
139
140h8300-*-*
141mcore-*-*
142mn10300-*-*
143ns32k-*-*
144sh64-*-*
145v850-*-*
146
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147*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
148
149* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
150
151When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
152heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
153been fixed.
154
155* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
156
157When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
158fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
159IRIX long double values).
160
161* VAX and "next"
162
163A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
164command. This problem has been fixed.
165
860660cb 166*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 167
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168* Fix for ``many threads''
169
170On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
171rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
172error message:
173
174 ptrace: No such process.
175 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
176
177This problem has been fixed.
178
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179* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
180
181Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
182GDB to dump core).
183
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184* New ``start'' command.
185
186This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
187
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188* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
189
190Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
191live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
192platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
193
194FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
195FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
196NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
197NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
198NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
199OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
200OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
201OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
202OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
203
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204* Signal trampoline code overhauled
205
206Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
207These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
208of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
209call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
210signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
211
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212Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
213features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
214include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 215
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216* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
217
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218* New native configurations
219
97dc871c 220GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 221OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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222OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
223OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 224OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 225NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 226OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 227
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228* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
229
230GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
231The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
232including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
233migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
234compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
235work, was also included.
236
237GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
238module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
239
240h8300-*-*
241mcore-*-*
242mn10300-*-*
243ns32k-*-*
244sh64-*-*
245v850-*-*
246xstormy16-*-*
247
248Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
249made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
250
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251* REMOVED configurations and files
252
253Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
254Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
255Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
256Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
257Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
258AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
259Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
260decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
261riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
262sonymips mips-sony-*
263sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
264
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265*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
266
267* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
268
269The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
270GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
271command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
272program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
273with GDB".
274
275* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
276
277Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
278libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
279cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
280GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
281shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
282the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
283are created.
284
285Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
286
287* Fixed ISO-C build problems
288
289The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
290non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
291compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
292
293* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
294
295Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
296wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
297
298* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
299
300The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
301permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
302systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
303
304* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
305
306Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
307has been updated to use constant array sizes.
308
309* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
310
311GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
312its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
313panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
314
315* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
316
317When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
318by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
319not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
320
faae5abe 321*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 322
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323* Removed --with-mmalloc
324
325Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
326conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
327
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328* Changes in AMD64 configurations
329
330The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
331the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
332and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
333you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
334
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335* Revised SPARC target
336
337The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
338FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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339support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
340from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
341(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 342
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343* New C++ demangler
344
345GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
346names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
347with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
348programs.
349
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350* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
351
352GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
353arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
354encountered these.
355
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356* C++ nested types and namespaces
357
358GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
359improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
360is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
361Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
362namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
363"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
364frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
365if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
366GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
367
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368* New native configurations
369
370NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 371OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 372OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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373OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
374OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 375
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376* New debugging protocols
377
378M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
379
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380* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
381
382The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
383and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
384tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
385
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386* OBSOLETE configurations and files
387
388Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
389been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
390configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
391permanently REMOVED.
392
393Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
394Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
395Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
396Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
397Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
398AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
399Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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400decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
401riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
402sonymips mips-sony-*
403sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 404
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405* REMOVED configurations and files
406
407SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
408SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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409Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
410Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
411H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
412HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
413HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
414HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
415PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 416386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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417Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
418 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
419 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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420SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
421SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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422Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
423Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 424
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425*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
426
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427* Objective-C
428
429Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
430integrated into GDB.
431
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432* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
433
434DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
435information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
436By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
437backtraces.
438
439The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
440have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
441DWARF 2 CFI support.
442
443* Hosted file I/O.
444
445GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
446file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
447remote protocol documentation for details.
448
449* All targets using the new architecture framework.
450
451All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
452architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
453to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
454ppc32 on ppc64).
455
456* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
457
458GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
459per-thread variables.
460
461* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
462
463GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
464GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
465
466* Separate debug info.
467
468GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
469automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
470of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
471system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
472and optional debug files.
473
474* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
475
476DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
477describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
478debugger.
479
480GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
481for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
482
483* Java
484
485A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
486Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
487considered "useable".
488
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489* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
490
491The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
492commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
493kernel.
494
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495* GDB supports logging output to a file
496
497There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
498used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 499
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500* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
501
502The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
503disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
504command.
505
e286caf2 506* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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507
508The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
509registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
510
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511* Profiling support
512
513A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
514be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
515session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
516"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
517data, for more informative profiling results.
518
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519* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
520
521The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
522option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 523"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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524
525Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
526removed.
527
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528Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
529Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
530Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
531 in a subsequent -var-update.
532
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533* New native configurations.
534
535FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
536
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537* Multi-arched targets.
538
b4263afa 539HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 540Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 541
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542* OBSOLETE configurations and files
543
544Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
545been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
546configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
547permanently REMOVED.
548
8b0e5691 549Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 550Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 551H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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552HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
553HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
554HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 555PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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556Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
557 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
558 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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559Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
560Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 561
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562* REMOVED configurations and files
563
564V850EA ISA
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565Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
566IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
567i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
568i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
569i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
570HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
571 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
572 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
573Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
574Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
575Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
576OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
577I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 578
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579* MIPS $fp behavior changed
580
581The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
582the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
583context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
584address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
585The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
586
299ffc64 587*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 588
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589* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
590
591When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
592`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
593in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
594library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
595shared libs like mad''.
596
b9d14705 597* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 598
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599Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
600the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
601arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
602powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 603
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604* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
605
606GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
607and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
608they expand.
609
dd73b9bb
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610The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
611invocations in expression, and shows the result.
612
613The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
614macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
615
e0e9281e
JB
616Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
617information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
618your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
619information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
620
2250ee0c
CV
621* Multi-arched targets.
622
6e3ba3b8
JT
623DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
624DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 625NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 626National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
627Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
628Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 629
cd9bfe15 630* New targets.
e33ce519 631
456f8b9d
DB
632Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
633
e33ce519 634
da8ca43d
JT
635* New native configurations
636
637Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 638SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 639MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 640UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 641
cd9bfe15
AC
642* OBSOLETE configurations and files
643
644Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
645been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
646configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
647permanently REMOVED.
648
92eb23c5 649Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 650OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 651IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 652Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 653Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 654Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
655i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
656i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
657i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
658HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
659 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
660 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 661I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 662
db034ac5
AC
663* OBSOLETE languages
664
665CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
666
cd9bfe15
AC
667* REMOVED configurations and files
668
669AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
670A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
671AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
672AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
673AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
674
675testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
676
20f01a46
DH
677* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
678
679This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
680commands. The default is 1024.
681
a5941fbf
MK
682* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
683
684Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
685
89743e04
MS
686* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
687
688These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
689to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
690from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 691
9fb14e79
JB
692* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
693
694The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
695including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
696of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
697
2037aebb
AC
698*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
699
700* New targets.
701
702Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
703
704* Bug fixes
705
706gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
707mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
708Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
709
710gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
711dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
712Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
713
714Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
715Surprisingly enough, it works now.
716By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
717
718i386 hardware watchpoint support:
719avoid misses on second run for some targets.
720By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
721
37057839 722*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 723
1a703748
MS
724* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
725
726This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
727really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
728In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
729target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
730This can be a significant performance improvement on some
731(notably embedded) targets.
732
cefd4ef5
MS
733* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
734
55241689
AC
735This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
736process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
737GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
738hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 739
352ed7b4
MS
740* New command line option
741
742GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
743
744* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
745
746There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
747command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
748a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
749be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
750open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
751issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
752a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
753it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
754GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
755is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
756
fe419ffc
RE
757* Changes in ARM configurations.
758
759Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
760configuration is fully multi-arch.
761
eb7cedd9
MK
762* New native configurations
763
fe419ffc 764ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 765x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 766AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 767Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 768
c9f63e6b
CV
769* New targets
770
771Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
772
9b4ff276
AC
773* OBSOLETE configurations and files
774
775Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
776been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
777configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
778permanently REMOVED.
779
780AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
781A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
782AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
783AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
784AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
785
b4ceaee6 786testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 787
e2caac18
AC
788* REMOVED configurations and files
789
790TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 791WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
792PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
793PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
794PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 795Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
796Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
797 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 798SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 799Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
800Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
801ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 802Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 803
c2a727fa
TT
804* Changes to command line processing
805
806The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
807for the inferior from gdb's command line.
808
467d8519
TT
809* Changes to key bindings
810
811There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
812
7072a954
AC
813*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
814
815Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
816
817Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
818corrupted.
819
820Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
821
822Numerous documentation fixes.
823
824Numerous testsuite fixes.
825
34f47bc4 826*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
827
828* New native configurations
829
830Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
831x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 832MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
833MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
834ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 835s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 836
bf64bfd6
AC
837* New targets
838
def90278 839Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 840CRIS cris-axis
55241689 841UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 842
17e78a56 843* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
844
845x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 846Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
847Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
848 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
849TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
850WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 851Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
852PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
853PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
854PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 855SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
856Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
857ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 858Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 859
17e78a56
AC
860stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
861kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
862
7fcca85b
AC
863Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
864been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
865configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
866permanently REMOVED.
867
a196c81c 868* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
869
870Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
871Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
872Pyramid pyramid-*-*
873ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
874Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 875ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 876
6d6b80e5 877* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 878
6d6b80e5 879GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
880sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
881present.
882
bf64bfd6
AC
883* Other news:
884
e23194cb
EZ
885* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
886
887* The MI enabled by default.
888
889The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
890revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
891engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
892using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
893which is now deprecated.
894
895* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
896
897GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
898main features are supported:
899
900 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
901
902 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
903 extension;
904
905 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
906
907 - a Pascal expression parser.
908
909However, some important features are not yet supported.
910
911 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
912
913 - there are some problems with boolean types;
914
915 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
916 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
917
918 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
919
920 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
921
922* Changes in completion.
923
924Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
925to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
926users expect at the shell prompt.
927
928Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
929`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
930program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
931files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
932be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
933considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
934name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
935
936`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
937
938* New platform-independent commands:
939
940It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
941hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
942documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
943
944* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
945
d7275149
MK
946Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
947revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
948many threads as your system allows you to have.
949
e23194cb
EZ
950Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
951
d7275149
MK
952Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
953multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
954
955* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
956
957Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
958
e23194cb
EZ
959GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
960debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
961supported.)
962
963* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
964
965Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
966breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
967implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
968put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
969and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
970registers.
971
972The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
973debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
974watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
975
976* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
977
978New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
979the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
980
981New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
982display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
983IDT.
984
985New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
986from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
987New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
988a given linear address.
989
990GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
991program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
992which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
993
994DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
995
6c56c069
EZ
996It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
997
e23194cb
EZ
998* Changes in documentation.
999
1000All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1001Documentation License.
1002
1003Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1004manual.
1005
1006TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1007
1008Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1009manual.
1010
1011The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1012documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1013hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1014
5d6640b1
AC
1015* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1016
1017The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1018``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1019contents of this file.
1020
1a1d8446
AC
1021* gdba.el deleted
1022
1023GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1024
9debab2f 1025*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1026
c63ce875
EZ
1027* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1028
1029Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1030programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1031displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1032greater level of detail.
1033
1034* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1035
1036It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1037bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1038on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1039written.
1040
1041* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1042
1043The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1044necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1045machines ``out of the box''.
1046
1047The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1048possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1049signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1050would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1051interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1052
1053It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1054standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1055even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1056and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1057terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1058
1059The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1060enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1061also works.
1062
1063DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1064GDB.
1065
1066It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1067directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1068times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1069breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1070
ed9a39eb
JM
1071* New native configurations
1072
1073ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1074PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1075
7a292a7a
SS
1076* New targets
1077
96baa820 1078Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1079x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1080PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1081TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1082
085dd6e6
JM
1083* OBSOLETE configurations
1084
1085Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1086Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1087Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1088ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1089Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1090
9debab2f
AC
1091Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1092but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1093these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1094be permanently REMOVED.
1095
5330533d
SS
1096* Gould support removed
1097
1098Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1099
bc9e5bbf
AC
1100* New features for SVR4
1101
1102On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1103without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1104load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1105
1106* Many C++ enhancements
1107
1108C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1109in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1110
adf40b2e
JM
1111* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1112
1113A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1114sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1115with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1116``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1117
1118 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1119 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1120
43e526b9
JM
1121* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1122
1123A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1124expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1125instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1126
1127The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1128added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1129
96baa820
JM
1130* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1131
1132The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1133``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1134include ``set remote P-packet''.
1135
11cf8741
JM
1136* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1137
1138The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1139accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1140``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1141
7876dd43
DB
1142* ``apropos'' command added.
1143
1144The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1145documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1146try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1147
bc9e5bbf
AC
1148* New MI interface
1149
1150A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1151interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1152process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1153"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1154enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1155
1156 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1157
c906108c
SS
1158*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1159
1160* New native configurations
1161
1162HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1163HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1164M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1165
1166* New targets
1167
1168Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1169Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1170Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1171
1172* OBSOLETE configurations
1173
1174Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1175
1176Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1177but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1178these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1179be permanently REMOVED.
1180
1181* ANSI/ISO C
1182
1183As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1184buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1185containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1186use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1187available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1188configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1189information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1190already.
1191
1192* Readline 2.2
1193
1194GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1195
1196* set extension-language
1197
1198You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1199languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1200you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1201 set extension-language .c c++
1202The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1203and their associated languages.
1204
1205* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1206
1207When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1208you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1209PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1210
1211 set processor NAME
1212
1213sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1214following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1215
1216 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1217 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1218 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1219 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1220 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1221 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1222 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1223 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1224 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1225 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1226 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1227
1228At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1229special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1230registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1231only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1232
1233* HP-UX support
1234
1235Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1236more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1237library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1238support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1239for xdb and dbx commands.
1240
1241* Catchpoints
1242
1243HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1244generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1245to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1246
1247This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1248argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1249output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1250
1251* Debugging across forks
1252
1253On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1254in the inferior.
1255
1256* TUI
1257
1258HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1259it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1260configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1261
1262* GDB remote protocol additions
1263
1264A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1265Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1266fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1267allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1268
1269For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1270full 64-bit address. The command
1271
1272 set remoteaddresssize 32
1273
1274can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1275the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1276will be discarded.
1277
1278In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1279command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1280
1281 maint packet heythere
1282
1283sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1284disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1285time.
1286
1287The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1288target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1289downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1290
1291* Tracing can collect general expressions
1292
1293You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1294further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1295doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1296
1297* mask-address variable for Mips
1298
1299For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1300a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1301of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1302
1303* Higher serial baud rates
1304
1305GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1306230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1307to achieve all of these rates.)
1308
1309* i960 simulator
1310
1311The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1312builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1313
1314
1315*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1316
1317* New native configurations
1318
1319Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1320Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1321Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1322PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1323PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1324Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1325Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1326
1327* New targets
1328
1329Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1330Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1331Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1332Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1333MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1334MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1335MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1336Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1337Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1338Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1339NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1340
1341* New debugging protocols
1342
1343ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1344M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1345DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1346PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1347PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1348Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1349
1350* DWARF 2
1351
1352All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1353format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1354information.
1355
1356* Java frontend
1357
1358GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1359only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1360
1361* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1362
1363For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1364loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1365locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1366
1367* Live range splitting
1368
1369GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1370range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1371more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1372
1373* Hurd support
1374
1375GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1376updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1377
1378* ARM Thumb support
1379
1380GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1381instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1382instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1383accordingly.
1384
1385* MIPS16 support
1386
1387GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1388instruction set.
1389
1390* Overlay support
1391
1392GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1393linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1394will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1395control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1396additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1397in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1398
1399* info symbol
1400
1401The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1402the symbol at the specified address.
1403
1404* Trace support
1405
1406The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1407asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1408extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1409includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1410file tracepoint.c for more details.
1411
1412* MIPS simulator
1413
1414Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1415by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1416of most MIPS variants.
1417
1418* Sparc simulator
1419
1420Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1421by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1422Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1423
1424* set architecture
1425
1426For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1427basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1428architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1429the possible architectures.
1430
1431*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1432
1433* New native configurations
1434
1435Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1436M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1437PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1438PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1439PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1440RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1441
1442* New targets
1443
1444ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1445I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1446MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1447MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1448PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1449Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1450Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1451
1452* PowerPC simulator
1453
1454The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1455contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1456PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1457basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1458performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1459
1460* Solaris 2.5
1461
1462GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1463
1464* Windows 95/NT native
1465
1466GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1467To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1468which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1469Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1470ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1471
1472* dont-repeat command
1473
1474If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1475command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1476useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1477extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1478
1479* Send break instead of ^C
1480
1481The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1482rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1483GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1484
1485* Remote protocol timeout
1486
1487The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1488that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1489to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1490
1491* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1492
1493By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1494loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1495stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1496when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1497in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1498
1499Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1500/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1501automatically on hpux10.
1502
1503* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1504
1505Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1506
1507* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1508
1509When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1510may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1511the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1512every character. The default value is 1050.
1513
1514* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1515
1516If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1517a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1518replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1519details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1520remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1521to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1522
1523* Speedups for remote debugging
1524
1525GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1526the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1527and more efficient S-record downloading.
1528
1529* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1530
1531GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1532Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1533
1534*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1535
1536* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1537
1538The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1539can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1540
1541* Remote targets use caching
1542
1543Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1544remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1545it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1546debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1547off' turns the the data cache off.
1548
1549* Remote targets may have threads
1550
1551The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1552in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1553gdb/remote.c for details.
1554
1555* NetROM support
1556
1557If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1558support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1559acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1560write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1561support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1562another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1563sequence is something like
1564
1565 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1566 load <prog>
1567 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1568
1569* Macintosh host
1570
1571GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1572may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1573it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1574available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1575device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1576directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1577scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1578mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1579
1580* Autoconf
1581
1582GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1583but does simplify configuration and building.
1584
1585* hpux10
1586
1587GDB now supports hpux10.
1588
1589*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1590
1591* New native configurations
1592
1593x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1594x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1595NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1596Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1597
1598* New targets
1599
1600A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1601HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1602CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1603PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1604WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1605
1606* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1607
1608GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1609possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1610filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1611the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1612if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1613
1614* Arguments to user-defined commands
1615
1616User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1617Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1618trivial example:
1619define adder
1620 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1621
1622To execute the command use:
1623adder 1 2 3
1624
1625Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1626Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1627use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1628
1629* New `if' and `while' commands
1630
1631This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1632commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1633expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1634execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1635terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1636`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1637if the expression is zero.
1638
1639* Fortran source language mode
1640
1641GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1642Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1643variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1644with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1645Fortran compilers.
1646
1647* Better HPUX support
1648
1649Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1650running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1651processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1652for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1653that behavior do the following before running the program:
1654
1655 adb -w a.out
1656 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1657 control-d
1658
1659This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1660To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1661
1662 adb -w a.out
1663 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1664 control-d
1665
1666You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1667the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1668external linkage.
1669
1670GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1671HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1672
1673* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1674
1675You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1676commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1677current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1678"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1679associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1680configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1681
1682* New DOS host serial code
1683
1684This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1685no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1686a PC's serial port.
1687
1688*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1689
1690* New "complete" command
1691
1692This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1693were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1694
1695* Trailing space optional in prompt
1696
1697"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1698allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1699
1700* Breakpoint hit counts
1701
1702"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1703has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1704can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1705to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1706less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1707that breakpoint.
1708
1709* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1710
1711"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1712an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1713arrays actually contain only short strings.
1714
1715* Shared library breakpoints
1716
1717In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1718breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1719
1720* Hardware watchpoints
1721
1722There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1723targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1724
55241689 1725Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1726
1727* Annotations
1728
1729Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1730and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1731
1732* Improved Irix 5 support
1733
1734GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1735
1736* Improved HPPA support
1737
1738GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1739
1740* New native configurations
1741
1742Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1743HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1744Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1745RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1746
1747* New targets
1748
1749OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1750MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1751Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1752
1753* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1754
1755There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1756This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1757
1758* Fixes
1759
1760As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1761and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1762
1763*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1764
1765* Irix 5 is now supported
1766
1767* HPPA support
1768
1769GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1770to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1771GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1772of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1773can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1774
1775
1776*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1777
1778* User visible changes:
1779
1780* Remote Debugging
1781
1782The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1783target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1784debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1785integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1786debugging info for the mips target).
1787
1788* DEC Alpha native support
1789
1790GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1791debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1792work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1793Alpha-specific notes.
1794
1795* Preliminary thread implementation
1796
1797GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1798
1799* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1800
1801This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1802to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1803for details).
1804
1805* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1806
1807This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1808mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1809call methods, ...etc.
1810
1811*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1812
1813 * User visible changes:
1814
1815Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1816supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1817other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1818somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1819
1820Filename completion now works.
1821
1822When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1823arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1824addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1825
1826All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1827vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1828should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1829your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1830to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1831
1832 * DEC alpha support
1833
1834This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1835cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1836
1837
1838*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1839
1840 * Testsuite
1841
1842This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1843The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1844via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1845
1846 * C++ demangling
1847
1848'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1849emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1850Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1851disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1852use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1853
1854 * Simulators
1855
1856GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1857So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1858Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1859
1860 * New targets supported
1861
1862H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1863H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1864SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1865Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1866IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1867
1868Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1869version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1870GO32 memory extender.
1871
1872 * New remote protocols
1873
1874MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1875
1876 * New source languages supported
1877
1878This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1879used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1880into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1881
1882
1883*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1884
1885 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1886
1887GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1888version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1889University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1890compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1891format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1892(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1893
1894Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1895
1896 * Faster and better demangling
1897
1898We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1899demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1900character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1901only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1902This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1903increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1904symbol lookups.
1905
1906`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1907from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1908compiler does not actually implement.
1909
1910 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1911
1912In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1913inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1914recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1915very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1916The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1917circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1918fix.
1919
1920The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1921release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1922
1923 * Improved configure script
1924
1925The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1926you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1927host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1928done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1929
1930We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1931version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1932`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1933The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1934only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1935We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1936
1937 * Documentation improvements
1938
1939There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1940produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1941before submitting changes.
1942
1943The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1944M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1945`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1946you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1947a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1948
1949*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1950We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1951been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1952or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1953`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1954around this problem.
1955
1956 * New features
1957
1958GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1959the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1960`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1961the target program.
1962
1963The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1964how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1965
1966 * New native hosts supported
1967
1968HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1969386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1970
1971 * New targets supported
1972
1973AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1974
1975 * New file formats supported
1976
1977BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1978HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1979
1980 * Major bug fixes
1981
1982Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1983
1984We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1985printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1986
1987We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1988for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1989release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1990
1991You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1992will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1993
1994We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1995for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1996especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1997libraries.
1998
1999The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2000information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2001command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2002any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2003when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2004
2005 * Internal improvements
2006
2007GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2008debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2009
2010GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2011Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2012symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2013contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2014shared code that handles any of them.
2015
2016 * New command line options
2017
2018We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2019
2020 * Mmalloc licensing
2021
2022The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2023General Public License.
2024
2025*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2026
2027 * Host/native/target split
2028
2029GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2030hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2031target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2032local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2033ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2034
2035The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2036GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2037is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2038code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2039any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2040built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2041handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2042
2043GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2044It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2045plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2046
2047 * New hosts supported
2048
2049HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2050386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2051386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2052
2053 * New targets supported
2054
2055Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
205668030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2057
2058 * New native hosts supported
2059
2060386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2061 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2062386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2063
2064 * New file formats supported
2065
2066BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2067supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2068format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2069
2070 * New commands
2071
2072`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2073`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2074These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2075
2076`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2077
2078You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2079scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2080prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2081executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2082
2083 * C++ improvements
2084
2085We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2086info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2087symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2088
2089Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2090
2091 * Major bug fixes
2092
2093The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2094fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2095by the compiler.
2096
2097We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2098support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2099
2100John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2101slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2102that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2103purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2104the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2105mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2106
2107Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2108about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2109completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2110we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2111
2112 * AMD 29k support
2113
2114A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2115specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2116calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2117usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2118in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2119
2120We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2121Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2122of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2123resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2124
2125 * Remote interfaces
2126
2127We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2128with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2129message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2130This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2131needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2132breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2133each instruction being stepped through.
2134
2135The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2136registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2137
2138There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2139find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2140Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2141processor with a serial port.
2142
2143 * Configuration
2144
2145Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2146`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2147supported, and what files each one uses.
2148
2149 * Library changes
2150
2151There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2152disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2153Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2154disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2155
2156The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2157Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2158can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2159grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2160
2161 * Documentation
2162
2163The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2164reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2165as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2166encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2167system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2168bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2169
2170And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2171
2172
2173*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2174
2175 * Better support for C++ function names
2176
2177GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2178names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2179(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2180single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2181Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2182
2183GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2184the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2185You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2186lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2187for the list of formats.
2188
2189 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2190
2191Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2192C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2193directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2194can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2195usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2196about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2197this problem.)
2198
2199 * New 'maintenance' command
2200
2201All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2202the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2203can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2204
2205 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2206 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2207 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2208 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2209 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2210 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2211
2212The following commands are new:
2213
2214 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2215 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2216 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2217
2218 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2219
2220We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2221(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2222be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2223read after argv processing.
2224
2225 * New hosts supported
2226
2227Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2228
55241689 2229GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2230
2231We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2232is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2233for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2234masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2235fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2236It costs extra.
2237
2238 * New targets supported
2239
2240Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2241
2242 * More smarts about finding #include files
2243
2244GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2245all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2246greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2247especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2248the one that contains your sources.
2249
2250We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2251breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2252try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2253
2254 * Interesting infernals change
2255
2256GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2257section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2258target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2259stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2260
2261 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2262
2263There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2264 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2265 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2266
2267See the ChangeLog for details.
2268
2269*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2270
2271 * New machines supported (host and target)
2272
2273IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2274
2275SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2276
2277 * New malloc package
2278
2279GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2280Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2281capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2282This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2283pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2284more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2285
2286 * info proc
2287
2288The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2289'help info proc' for details.
2290
2291 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2292
2293The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2294Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2295possible.
2296
2297 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2298
2299Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2300support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2301conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2302environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2303that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2304in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2305
2306 * Cross byte order fixes
2307
2308Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2309targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2310
2311 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2312
2313If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2314system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2315`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2316program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2317called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2318Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2319and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2320the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2321option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2322starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2323
2324You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2325the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2326information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2327slower, but makes future operations faster.
2328
2329The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2330build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2331A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2332use is:
2333
2334 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2335
2336The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2337It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2338shared across multiple host platforms.
2339
2340 * longjmp() handling
2341
2342GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2343siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2344all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2345platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2346
2347 * Solaris 2.0
2348
2349Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2350this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2351reading symbols.
2352
2353 * Bug fixes
2354
2355As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2356People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2357crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2358
2359*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2360
2361 * New machines supported (host and target)
2362
2363SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2364 (except core files)
2365BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2366Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2367
2368 * New machines supported (target)
2369
2370AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2371
2372 * C++ support
2373
2374GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2375The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2376per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2377
2378GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2379`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2380extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2381good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2382will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2383released.
2384
2385 * New features for SVR4
2386
2387GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2388shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2389only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2390
2391The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2392on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2393it prints the address mappings of the process.
2394
2395If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2396bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2397
2398 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2399
2400Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2401now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2402skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2403make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2404same code linked statically.
2405
2406 * New Getopt
2407
2408GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2409version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2410continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2411Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2412added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2413future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2414
2415 * Bugs fixed
2416
2417The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2418Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2419See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2420
2421
2422*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2423
2424 * New machines supported (host and target)
2425
2426Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2427NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2428Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2429
2430 * Almost SCO Unix support
2431
2432We had hoped to support:
2433SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2434(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2435that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2436about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2437
2438 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2439
2440GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2441debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2442is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2443send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2444reqired (if any).
2445
2446 * New Readline
2447
2448GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2449is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2450required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2451
2452 * Bugs fixed
2453
2454The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2455Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2456See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2457
2458 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2459
2460GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2461supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2462symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2463
2464Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2465mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2466debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2467mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2468version 2.
2469
2470Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2471really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2472line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2473variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2474situation somewhat.
2475
2476When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2477However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2478methods.
2479
2480We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2481DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2482encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2483
2484
2485*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2486
2487 * Improved configuration
2488
2489Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2490Porting BFD is simpler.
2491
2492 * Stepping improved
2493
2494The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2495of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2496in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2497function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2498
2499 * Bug fixing
2500
2501Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2502
2503 * New host supported (not target)
2504
2505Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2506
2507
2508*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2509
2510 * Multiple source language support
2511
2512GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2513It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2514and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2515language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2516You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2517`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2518
2519 * GDB and Modula-2
2520
2521GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2522currently under development at the State University of New York at
2523Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2524continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2525
2526Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2527debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2528symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2529
2530There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2531in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2532
2533 * set write on/off
2534
2535GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2536a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2537the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2538by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2539effect immediately.
2540
2541 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2542
2543When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2544shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2545The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2546examining core files.
2547
2548 * set listsize
2549
2550You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2551The default is 10.
2552
2553 * New machines supported (host and target)
2554
2555SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2556Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2557Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2558
2559 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2560
2561IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2562
2563 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2564
2565AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2566AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2567Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2568
2569 * New remote interfaces
2570
2571AMD 29000 Adapt
2572AMD 29000 Minimon
2573
2574
2575*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2576
2577 * New Facilities
2578
2579Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2580
2581Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2582target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2583is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2584remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2585remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2586also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2587using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2588stub on the target system.
2589
2590New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2591
2592GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2593library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2594object file types such as a.out and coff.
2595
2596There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2597refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2598
2599
2600 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2601
2602All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2603by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2604
2605For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2606``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2607Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2608
2609What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2610print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2611will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2612all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2613
2614confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2615 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2616 it is already running. Default is ON.
2617
2618editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2619 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2620 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2621 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2622 Default is ON.
2623
2624history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2625 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2626 or the value of the environment variable
2627 GDBHISTFILE.
2628
2629history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2630 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2631 HISTSIZE.
2632
2633history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2634 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2635 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2636
2637history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2638 history expansion will be performed on
2639 command line input. The default is OFF.
2640
2641radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2642 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2643 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2644
2645height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2646 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2647 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2648 variable TERM.
2649
2650width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2651 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2652 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2653 variable TERM.
2654
2655Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2656``set width'' instead.
2657
2658print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2659 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2660 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2661 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2662
2663print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2664 is OFF.
2665
2666print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2667 "raw" form if off.
2668
2669print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2670 like instructions.
2671
2672print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2673
2674
2675 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2676
2677The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2678new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2679are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2680window.
2681
2682
2683 * Support for Shared Libraries
2684
2685GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2686Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2687before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2688happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2689At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2690from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2691shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2692It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2693
2694sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2695 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2696 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2697
2698info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2699
2700
2701 * Watchpoints
2702
2703A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2704expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2705tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2706quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2707problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2708more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2709
2710watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2711
2712info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2713
2714delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2715disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2716enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2717
2718
2719 * C++ multiple inheritance
2720
2721When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2722for C++ programs.
2723
2724 * C++ exception handling
2725
2726Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2727ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2728the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2729handler's context).
2730
2731catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2732 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2733 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2734
2735info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2736 current stack frame.
2737
2738
2739 * Minor command changes
2740
2741The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2742command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2743is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2744
2745The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2746at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2747frames without printing.
2748
2749 * New directory command
2750
2751'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2752The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2753about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2754with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2755find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2756
2757 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2758
2759For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2760for more details.
2761
2762GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2763two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2764Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2765where the program that you are debugging will run.
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