* symfile.h (struct sym_fns): Delete member "sym_flavour".
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
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6* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
7 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
8 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
9 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
10 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
11 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
12 "void".
13
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14* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
15
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16* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
17
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18* Python scripting
19
20 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
21
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22* New targets
23
24Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
25Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 26Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 27
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28* Removed native configurations
29
30Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
31been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
32
33arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
34i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
35i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
36i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
37m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
38sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
39vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
40
bd712aed 41* New commands:
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42catch rethrow
43 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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44maint check-psymtabs
45 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
46maint check-symtabs
47 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
48maint expand-symtabs
49 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 50
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51show configuration
52 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
53
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54maint set|show per-command
55maint set|show per-command space
56maint set|show per-command time
57maint set|show per-command symtab
58 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
59
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60* New options
61
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62set print raw frame-arguments
63show print raw frame-arguments
64 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
65 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
66
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67set remote trace-status-packet
68show remote trace-status-packet
69 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
70
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71set debug nios2
72show debug nios2
73 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
74
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75set range-stepping
76show range-stepping
77 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
78
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79* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
80 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
81 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
82 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
83 "set height 0".
84
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85* New command-line options
86--configuration
87 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
88
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89* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
90 buffer in Common Trace Format.
91
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92* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
93 GDB command gcore.
94
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95* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
96
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97* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
98 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
99
100* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
101 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
102
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103* MI changes
104
105 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
106 Trace Format now.
107
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108 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
109
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110 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
111 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
112 are displayed.
113
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114 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
115 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
116
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117 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
118 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
119 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
120
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121* New system-wide configuration scripts
122 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
123 configuration scripts for the following systems:
124 ** ElinOS
125 ** Wind River Linux
126
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127* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
128 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
129 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
130 below.
131
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132* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
133 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
134
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135* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
136 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
137 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
138
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139* New remote packets
140
141vCont;r
142
143 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
144 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
145 involvemement at each single-step.
146
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147qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
148 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
149 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
150 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
151 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
152 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
153 speedup.
154
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155* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
156
157 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
158 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
159
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160 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
161 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
162 trace state variables.
163
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164 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
165 target.
166
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167* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
168 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
169
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170* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
171
2d450646 172*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 173
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174* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
175 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
176 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
177 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
178
179set|show record full insn-number-max
180set|show record full stop-at-limit
181set|show record full memory-query
182
183* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
184 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
185 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
186 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
187 This new recording method can be enabled using:
188
189record btrace
190
191 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
192 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
193
194* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
195 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
196 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
197
198record instruction-history prints the execution history at
199 instruction granularity
200
201record function-call-history prints the execution history at
202 function granularity
203
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204* New native configurations
205
51d66578 206ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 207FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 208x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 209Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 210
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211* New targets
212
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213ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
214ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 215Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 216x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 217Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 218
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219* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
220 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
221 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
222 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
223 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
224 --data-directory command-line option.
225
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226* New command line options:
227
228-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
229 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
230
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231* Removed command line options
232
233-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
234 Emacs.
235
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236* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
237 type formatting.
238
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239* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
240
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241* Python scripting
242
243 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
244
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245 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
246
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247 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
248
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249 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
250
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251 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
252 of architecture in the Python API.
253
254 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
255 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
256
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257* New Python-based convenience functions:
258
259 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
260 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
261 ** $_strlen(str)
262 ** $_regex(str, regex)
263
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264* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
265 given an argument.
266
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267* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
268 default for GCC since November 2000.
269
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270* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
271
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272* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
273 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
274
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275* New configure options
276
277--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
278 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
279 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
280 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
281 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
282 options allow the user to override that default.
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283--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
284 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
285 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 286
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287* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
288
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289catch signal
290 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
291 conditions to be attached.
292
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293maint info bfds
294 List the BFDs known to GDB.
295
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296python-interactive [command]
297pi [command]
298 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
299 and print the result of expressions.
300
301py [command]
302 "py" is a new alias for "python".
303
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304enable type-printer [name]...
305disable type-printer [name]...
306 Enable or disable type printers.
307
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308* Removed commands
309
310 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
311 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
312 instead.
313
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314* New options
315
316set print type methods (on|off)
317show print type methods
318 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
319 The default is to show them.
320
321set print type typedefs (on|off)
322show print type typedefs
323 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
324 The default is to show them.
325
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326set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
327show filename-display
328 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
329 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
330
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331set trace-buffer-size
332show trace-buffer-size
333 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
334
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335set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
336show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
337 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
338
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339set debug aarch64
340show debug aarch64
341 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
342 The default is off.
343
344set debug coff-pe-read
345show debug coff-pe-read
346 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
347 exported symbols.
348
349set debug mach-o
350show debug mach-o
351 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
352 processing.
353
354set debug notification
355show debug notification
356 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
357
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358* MI changes
359
360 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
361 "=cmd-param-changed".
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362 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
363 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
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364 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
365 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
366 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
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367 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
368 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
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369 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
370 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 371 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 372 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
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373 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
374 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
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375 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
376 library load/unload events.
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377 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
378 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
379 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
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380 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
381 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
382 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
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383 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
384 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 385
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386* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
387 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
388 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
389 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
390
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391* New remote packets
392
393QTBuffer:size
394 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
395 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
396
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397Qbtrace:bts
398 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
399 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
400 qSupported query.
401
402Qbtrace:off
403 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
404 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
405
406qXfer:btrace:read
407 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
408 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
409
80c8d323 410*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 411
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412* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
413 for more x32 ABI info.
414
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415* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
416
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417* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
418
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419* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
420 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
421 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
422 "info os files" lists file descriptors
423 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
424 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
425 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
426 "info os msg" lists message queues
427 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
428
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429* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
430 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
431 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
432 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
433 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
434 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
435
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436* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
437 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
438 record/replay support.
439
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440* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
441
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442* Python scripting
443
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444 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
445 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
446
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447 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
448
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449 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
450 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
451
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452 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
453
454 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
455 the source at which the symbol was defined.
456
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457 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
458 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
459 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
460 symbol's value.
461
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462 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
463 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
464
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465 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
466 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
467 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
468
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469 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
470 object associated with a PC value.
471
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472 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
473 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
474
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475* Go language support.
476 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
477 language.
478
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479* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
480 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
481
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482* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
483 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
484
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485* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
486 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
487 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
488 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
489 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
490 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
491
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492* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
493 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
494 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
495 build/libcpp/expr.c.
496
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497* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
498 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
499
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500* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
501 since December 2007.
502
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503* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
504 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
505 command does. For instance:
506
507 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
508
509 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
510 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
511 created, using the "condition" command.
512
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513* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
514 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
515
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516* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
517
518* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
519 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
520 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
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521 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
522 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
523 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
524 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
525 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 526
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527 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
528 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
529 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
530 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
531 the .gdb_index section.
532
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533* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
534
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535* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
536 target.
537
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538* MI changes
539
540 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
541
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542 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
543
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544* New commands
545
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546 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
547 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
548 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
549
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550 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
551 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
552
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553 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
554 several hits.
555
57651221 556 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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557 C++ and Java objects.
558
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559 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
560 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
561 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
562 configured with '--with-python'.
563
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564 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
565 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
566 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
567 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
568 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
569 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
570 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
571
572 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
573 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
574 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
575 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
576
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577 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
578 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
579 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
580 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
581
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582 ** "set print symbol"
583 "show print symbol"
584 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
585 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
586 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
587
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588* Deprecated commands
589
590 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
591 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
592
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593* New targets
594
595Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 596HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 597
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598* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
599 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
600 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
601 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
602 evaluates to true.
603
604* New options
605
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606set mips compression
607show mips compression
608 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
609 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
610 mips16
611 micromips
612 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
613
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614set breakpoint condition-evaluation
615show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 616 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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617 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
618 available mode.
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619 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
620 target.
621
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622set auto-load off
623 Disable auto-loading globally.
624
625show auto-load
626 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
627
628set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
629show auto-load gdb-scripts
630 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
631
632set auto-load python-scripts on|off
633show auto-load python-scripts
634 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
635
636set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
637show auto-load local-gdbinit
638 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
639
640set auto-load libthread-db on|off
641show auto-load libthread-db
642 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
643
7349ff92 644set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 645show auto-load scripts-directory
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646 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
647 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
648 of the directories listed by this option.
649 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
650
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651set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
652show auto-load safe-path
653 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
654 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
655
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656set debug auto-load on|off
657show debug auto-load
658 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
659
d3ce09f5 660set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 661show dprintf-style
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SS
662 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
663 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
664 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
665 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
666
667set dprintf-function <expr>
668show dprintf-function
669set dprintf-channel <expr>
670show dprintf-channel
671 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
672 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
673
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674set disconnected-dprintf on|off
675show disconnected-dprintf
676 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
677 after GDB disconnects.
678
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JK
679* New configure options
680
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681--with-auto-load-dir
682 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
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683 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
684 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
685 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
686 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 687
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JK
688--with-auto-load-safe-path
689 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 690 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
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JK
691
692--without-auto-load-safe-path
693 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
694 security feature.
695
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696* New remote packets
697
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698z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
699
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700 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
701 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
702 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
703 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
704
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705QProgramSignals:
706
707 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
708 program without GDB involvement.
709
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JK
710* New command line options
711
712--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
713 before loading inferior.
714--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
715 execute it before loading inferior.
716
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JB
717*** Changes in GDB 7.4
718
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TT
719* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
720 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
721 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
722 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
723 inferior changes.
724
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JL
725* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
726 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
727
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PW
728* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
729 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
730 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
731 target hardware watchpoint.
732
733 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
734 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
735 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
736 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
737
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738* Python scripting
739
32d1c362 740 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 741 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
742 existing one.
743
3a7bf607 744 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
745 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
746 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
747 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
748 now "message", which just prints the error message without
749 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 750
baacfb07 751 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 752 Python API.
713389e0 753
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PM
754 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
755 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 756 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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757 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
758 corresponding value.
759
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760 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
761 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
762 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
763 on GDB start-up.
764
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765 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
766 static_block will return the global and static blocks
767 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
768 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
769
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DE
770 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
771
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KP
772 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
773 "gdb.breakpoints".
774
cc72b2a2
KP
775 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
776 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
777 available in the CLI.
778
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PK
779 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
780 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
781 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
782 "some_type.items()".
783
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KP
784 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
785 new object file.
786
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PK
787 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
788 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
789 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
790 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
791 any anonymous fields.
792
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TT
793* MI changes
794
795 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
796 "solib-event".
797
798 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
799 "=breakpoint-modified".
800
801 ** New command -ada-task-info.
802
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DE
803* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
804 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
805 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
806 lives.
807
808 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
809 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
810 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
811 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
812 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
813
814 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
815 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
816
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DE
817* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
818 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
819 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
820 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
821 use this option to specify where to find it.
822
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TJB
823* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
824 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
825 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
826 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
827 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
828 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
829 section in the user manual for more details.
830
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JK
831* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
832 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
833 become available after that.
834
71eba9c2 835* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 836
2bda9cc5
JK
837* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
838 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
839 gcc version 4.7.
840
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DE
841* New commands
842
843!SHELL COMMAND
844 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
845 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
846
9c06b0b4
TJB
847* Changed commands
848
849watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
850 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
851 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
852
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DE
853info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
854 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
855 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
856
71eba9c2 857info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
858 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
859 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
860 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
861 name starts with a hyphen.
862
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SS
863collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
864 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
865 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
866 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
867 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
868 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
869 number of bytes that will be collected.
870
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SS
871tstart [NOTES]
872 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
873 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
874 setting the variable trace-notes.
875
876tstop [NOTES]
877 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
878 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
879 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
880 trace-stop-notes.
881
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KY
882* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
883 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
884 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
885 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
886 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
887 is running.
888
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SS
889* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
890 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
891 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
892
2bda9cc5
JK
893* New options
894
45cfd468
DE
895set debug dwarf2-read
896show debug dwarf2-read
897 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
898 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
899
900set debug symtab-create
901show debug symtab-create
902 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
903 creation. The default is off.
904
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PM
905set extended-prompt
906show extended-prompt
907 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
908 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
909 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
910 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
911 prompt is displayed.
912
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JK
913set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
914show print entry-values
915 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
916 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
917 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
918
919set debug entry-values
920show debug entry-values
921 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
922 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
923
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DE
924set basenames-may-differ
925show basenames-may-differ
926 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
927 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
928 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
929 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
930 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
931 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
932 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
933 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
934
f196051f
SS
935set trace-user
936show trace-user
937set trace-notes
938show trace-notes
939 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
940 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
941 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
942 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
943
944set trace-stop-notes
945show trace-stop-notes
946 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
947 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
948 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
949 started by someone else.
950
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KY
951* New remote packets
952
953QTEnable
954
955 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
956
957QTDisable
958
959 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
960
f196051f
SS
961QTNotes
962
963 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
964
965qTP
966
967 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
968
405f8e94
SS
969qTMinFTPILen
970
971 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
972 be placed.
973
1a532630
PP
974* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
975 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
976
11315641
YQ
977* New targets
978
979Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
980
87326c78
DD
981* New Simulators
982
983Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
984
e8d56f18
JB
985*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
986
987* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
988
d6e00af6 989*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 990
60f98dde
MS
991* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
992 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
993 matches the given regular expression.
994
eee5b35e
DD
995* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
996
b716877b
AB
997* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
998 dumping the instruction opcodes.
999
aae1c79a
DE
1000* New command line options
1001
1002-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1003 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1004
a86caf66
DE
1005* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1006 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1007
99e7ae30
DE
1008* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1009 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1010 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1011
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TT
1012* GDB now understands thread names.
1013
1014 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1015 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1016
1017 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1018 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1019
f4b8a18d
KW
1020* OpenCL C
1021 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1022 has been integrated into GDB.
1023
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PM
1024* Python scripting
1025
da5d4055
PM
1026 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1027 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1028 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1029
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PM
1030 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1031 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1032 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1033 and allows for more dynamic content.
1034
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PM
1035 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1036 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1037 have an is_valid method.
1038
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PM
1039 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1040 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1041 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1042
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DE
1043 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1044
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PM
1045 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1046 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1047 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1048 that function like so:
1049
1050 result = some_value (10,20)
1051
0e3509db
DE
1052 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1053 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1054 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1055
7b51bc51
DE
1056 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1057 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1058 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1059 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1060 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1061
1062 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1063 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1064
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DE
1065 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1066
d8e22779
TT
1067 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1068 selected thread.
1069
4694da01
TT
1070 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1071 holds the thread's name.
1072
505500db
SW
1073 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1074 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1075 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1076 The following events are currently supported:
1077 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1078 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1079 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1080
def98928
TT
1081* C++ Improvements:
1082
1083 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1084 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1085
1086 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1087
1088 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1089 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1090 was added to GCC 4.5.
1091
66cb8159
TT
1092 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1093 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1094 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1095 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1096 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1097 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1098
4aac0db7
UW
1099* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1100 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1101 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1102 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1103 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1104
283e6a52
TT
1105* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1106 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1107 execution to a label.
1108
1109* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1110 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1111 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1112 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1113
b56df873 1114* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1115 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1116 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1117 of scope.
1118
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PA
1119* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1120
1121 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1122 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1123 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1124 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1125 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1126 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1127
1128 (gdb) info threads
1129 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1130
1131 While now you see this:
1132
1133 (gdb) info threads
1134 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1135
1136 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1137 dumps.
1138
1139 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1140 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1141 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1142 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1143
f1310107
TJB
1144* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1145 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1146 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1147 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1148 section in the user manual for more details.
1149
248c9dbc
JB
1150* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1151
1aee7009
JB
1152 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1153 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1154
eb826dc6
MF
1155 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1156
44603653
JB
1157* New native configurations
1158
1159ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1160
91021223
MF
1161* New targets:
1162
1163Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1164
6e1bb179
JB
1165* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1166 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1167 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1168 in the GDB user manual.
1169
50c97f38
TT
1170* Guile support was removed.
1171
448a92bf
MF
1172* New features in the GNU simulator
1173
1174 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1175
66ee2731
MF
1176 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1177
76b8507d 1178*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1179
ba25b921
PA
1180* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1181
1182 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1183 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1184 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1185 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1186 was always disabled for such configurations.
1187
4656f5c6
SW
1188* C++ Improvements:
1189
1190 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1191
1192 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1193 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1194 For example:
1195 namespace A
1196 {
1197 class B { };
1198 void foo (B) { }
1199 }
1200 ...
1201 A::B b
1202 foo(b)
1203 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1204 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1205 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1206
1207 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1208
1209 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1210 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1211 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1212 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1213 entry.
1214 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1215 mentioned flavors of operators.
1216
254e6b9e
DE
1217 ** static const class members
1218
1219 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1220 class definition has been fixed.
1221
711e434b
PM
1222* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1223
1224 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1225 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1226 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1227 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1228 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1229 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1230
0fb4aa4b
PA
1231* Static tracepoints
1232
1233 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1234 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1235 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1236 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1237 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1238 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1239 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1240 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1241 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1242 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1243 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1244 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1245 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1246 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1247 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1248 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1249 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1250 the "New remote packets" section below.
1251
ca11e899
SS
1252* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1253
1254 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1255 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1256 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1257 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1258
1259* Observer mode
1260
1261 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1262 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1263 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1264 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1265 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1266 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1267 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1268
1269* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1270 current thread.
1271
711e434b
PM
1272* New remote packets
1273
1274qGetTIBAddr
1275
1276 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1277
dde08ee1
PA
1278qRelocInsn
1279
1280 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1281 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1282 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1283 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1284 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1285 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1286
0fb4aa4b
PA
1287qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1288
1289 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1290
1291qTSTMat
1292
1293 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1294 program.
1295
1296qXfer:statictrace:read
1297
1298 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1299 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1300 to gdb's qSupported query.
1301
ca11e899
SS
1302QAllow
1303
1304 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1305
1306QTDPsrc
1307
1308 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1309 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1310
3f7b2faa
DE
1311* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1312 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1313 a directory.
1314
d337e9f0
PA
1315* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1316
0fb4aa4b
PA
1317 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1318 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1319 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1320 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1321
1322 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1323 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1324 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1325 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1326 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1327 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1328 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1329
1330 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1331 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1332
c24d0242
PM
1333 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1334
c8d5aac9
L
1335* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1336 it understands register description.
1337
7c953934
TT
1338* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1339
8685c86f
L
1340* X86 general purpose registers
1341
1342 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1343 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1344 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1345 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1346 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1347
95a42b64 1348* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1349 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1350 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1351 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1352 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1353 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1354
8bd10a10
CM
1355* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1356 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1357 in the specified file.
1358
ab38a727
PA
1359* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1360 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1361 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1362 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1363 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1364 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1365 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1366 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1367 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1368 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1369
6149aea9
PA
1370* New commands
1371
f1421989
HZ
1372eval template, expressions...
1373 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1374 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1375
ab38a727
PA
1376set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1377show target-file-system-kind
1378 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1379 names.
1380
6149aea9
PA
1381save breakpoints <filename>
1382 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1383 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1384 definitions, use the `source' command.
1385
1386`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1387is now deprecated.
1388
0fb4aa4b
PA
1389info static-tracepoint-markers
1390 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1391
1392strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1393 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1394 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1395
ca11e899
SS
1396set observer on|off
1397show observer
1398 Enable and disable observer mode.
1399
1400set may-write-registers on|off
1401set may-write-memory on|off
1402set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1403set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1404set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1405set may-interrupt on|off
1406 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1407 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1408 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1409 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1410 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1411 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1412 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1413
1414set record memory-query on|off
1415show record memory-query
1416 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1417 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1418
53a71c06
CR
1419* Changed commands
1420
1421disassemble
1422 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1423
f3e9a817
PM
1424* Python scripting
1425
9279c692
JB
1426** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1427 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1428 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1429 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1430 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1431
adc36818 1432** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1433 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1434 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1435 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1436
fa33c3cd 1437** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1438 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1439
1440** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1441
1442** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1443
967cf477
DE
1444** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1445
8a1ea21f
DE
1446** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1447 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1448 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1449
a7bdde9e
VP
1450* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1451there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1452tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1453regular breakpoints.
1454
05071a4d
PA
1455* New targets
1456
1457ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1458
6aecb9c2
JB
1459* D language support.
1460 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1461 language.
1462
431e49aa
TJB
1463* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1464 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1465 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1466 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1467 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1468
1469* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1470 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1471 conditions of the form:
1472
1473 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1474
1475 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1476 interface mentioned above.
1477
bfbf3774 1478*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1479
4eef138c
TT
1480* C++ Improvements
1481
1482 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1483
1484 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1485 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1486 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1487 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1488 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1489
4eef138c
TT
1490 ** Bug Fixes
1491
1492 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1493 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1494 qualified name.
1495
1496 ** Cast Operators
1497
1498 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1499 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1500
2d1c1221
ME
1501* New targets
1502
1503Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1504Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1505
1506* New Simulators
1507
1508Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1509Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1510
6c95b8df
PA
1511* Multi-program debugging.
1512
1513 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1514 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1515 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1516 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1517 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1518 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1519 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1520 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1521
d5551862
SS
1522* New tracing features
1523
1524 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1525
1526 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1527
1528 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1529 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1530 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1531 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1532 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1533 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1534 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1535 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1536 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1537 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1538
d5551862 1539 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1540
1541 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1542 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1543 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1544 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1545 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1546 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1547 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1548 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1549 the regular trace command.
1550
d5551862
SS
1551 ** Disconnected tracing
1552
1553 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1554 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1555 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1556 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1557 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1558
00bf0b85
SS
1559 ** Trace files
1560
1561 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1562 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1563 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1564 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1565 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1566 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1567 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1568
1569 ** Circular trace buffer
1570
1571 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1572 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1573 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1574 not be available for all target agents.
1575
21a0512e
PP
1576* Changed commands
1577
1578disassemble
1579 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1580 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1581
0fe7935b
DJ
1582info variables
1583 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1584 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1585
fb2e7cb4
JB
1586source
1587 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1588 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1589 support.
1590
1591 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1592 "set script-extension" (see below).
1593
6c95b8df
PA
1594* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1595
399cd161
MS
1596record save [<FILENAME>]
1597 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1598 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1599
1600record restore <FILENAME>
1601 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1602 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1603
6c95b8df
PA
1604add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1605 Add a new inferior.
1606
1607clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1608 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1609 inferior has loaded.
1610
1611remove-inferior ID
1612 Remove an inferior.
1613
1614maint info program-spaces
1615 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1616
9a7071a8
JB
1617set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1618show remote interrupt-sequence
1619 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1620 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1621 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1622 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1623 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1624
1625set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1626show remote interrupt-on-connect
1627 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1628 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1629 Linux kernel.
1630
1631set remotebreak [on | off]
1632show remotebreak
1633Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1634
f61e138d
SS
1635tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1636 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1637
1638info tvariables
1639 List trace state variables and their values.
1640
1641delete tvariable $NAME ...
1642 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1643
6da95a67
SS
1644teval EXPR, ...
1645 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1646 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1647
7a697b8d
SS
1648ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1649 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1650
b0f02ee9
JK
1651* New expression syntax
1652
1653 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1654 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1655
6c95b8df
PA
1656* New options
1657
1658set follow-exec-mode new|same
1659show follow-exec-mode
1660 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1661 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1662 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1663
236f1d4d
SS
1664set default-collect EXPR, ...
1665show default-collect
1666 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1667 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1668 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1669
d5551862
SS
1670set disconnected-tracing
1671show disconnected-tracing
1672 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1673 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1674 upon disconnection.
1675
4daf5ac0
SS
1676set circular-trace-buffer
1677show circular-trace-buffer
1678 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1679 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1680 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1681 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1682
fb2e7cb4
JB
1683set script-extension off|soft|strict
1684show script-extension
1685 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1686 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1687 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1688 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1689 evaluation failed.
1690 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1691
2b71fc8e
JB
1692set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1693show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1694 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1695 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1696 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1697 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1698 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1699 is on.
1700
de2e5182
TT
1701* Python API Improvements
1702
1703 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1704 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1705 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1706
1707 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1708 `is_base_class' attribute.
1709
1710 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1711
1712 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1713 evaluate an expression.
1714
f61e138d
SS
1715* New remote packets
1716
1717QTDV
1718 Define a trace state variable.
1719
1720qTV
1721 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1722
d5551862
SS
1723QTDisconnected
1724 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1725
4daf5ac0
SS
1726QTBuffer:circular
1727 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1728
d5551862
SS
1729qTfP, qTsP
1730 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1731
2d483d34
MS
1732* Bug fixes
1733
1734Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1735
6e0e5977
JB
1736Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1737much more reliable. In particular:
1738 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1739 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1740 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1741 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1742 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1743 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1744 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1745 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1746 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1747 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1748 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1749 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1750 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1751 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1752 non-threaded programs.
1753
93c26624
JK
1754PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1755This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1756libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1757executable program.
1758
abc7453d 1759*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1760
4efc6507
DE
1761* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1762dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1763them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1764for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1765"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1766
782b2b07
SS
1767* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1768breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1769or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1770the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1771for tracepoint actions.
1772
53a71c06
CR
1773* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1774raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1775modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1776
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1777* Process record and replay
1778
1779 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1780 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1781 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1782 execute commands.
1783
64644d9b
MS
1784* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1785step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1786set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1787reverse execution.
1788
b9412953
DD
1789* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1790feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
17912.6.28 or later.
1792
6c7a06a3
TT
1793* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1794target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1795char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1796literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1797U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1798`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1799system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1800the installation instructions for more information.
1801
f1838a98
UW
1802* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1803remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1804with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1805the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1806
55333a84
DE
1807* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1808and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1809
7f6a6314
PM
1810* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1811now complete on file names.
1812
65d12d83
TT
1813* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1814completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1815For instance, consider:
1816
1817 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1818 # struct example variable;
1819 (gdb) p variable.
1820
1821If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1822completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1823
edb3359d
DJ
1824* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1825the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1826
2fae03e8
TT
1827* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1828operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1829macros.
1830
47a3467a 1831* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1832the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1833implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1834
1835* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1836registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1837can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1838and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1839
08388c79
DE
1840* New remote packets
1841
1842qSearch:memory:
1843 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1844
a6f3e723
SL
1845QStartNoAckMode
1846 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1847 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1848 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1849
d7713ae0
EZ
1850vKill
1851 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1852 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1853
07e059b5
VP
1854qXfer:osdata:read
1855 Obtains additional operating system information
1856
47a3467a
PA
1857qXfer:siginfo:read
1858qXfer:siginfo:write
1859 Read or write additional signal information.
1860
060871df
PA
1861* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1862
1863 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1864 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1865 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1866
c055b101 1867* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1868DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1869
1870* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1871and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1872`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1873
31fffb02
CS
1874* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1875with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1876
88d8a8e0
JB
1877* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1878
7f99b190
JB
1879* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1880
ccd213ac
DJ
1881* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1882which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1883
1fddbabb 1884* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1885list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1886
a0ef4274
DJ
1887* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1888conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1889have also been fixed.
1890
bfb8797a 1891* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1892From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1893are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1894
71c25dea
TT
1895* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1896example, given:
1897
1898 template<typename T> class C { };
1899 C<char const *> c;
1900
1901GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1902
1903 ptype C<char const *>
1904 ptype C<char const*>
1905 ptype C<const char *>
1906 ptype C<const char*>
1907
ccd213ac
DJ
1908* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1909
1910 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1911 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1912
7ae0e2a2
UW
1913 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1914 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1915 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1916
a6f3e723
SL
1917 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1918 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1919
da8bd9a3
DJ
1920 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1921 gdbserver.
1922
d70e31dd
DE
1923 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1924 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1925
1926 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1927 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1928 as appropriate.
1929
d57a3c85
TJB
1930* Python scripting
1931
1932 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1933 available is determined at configure time.
1934
d8906c6f
TJB
1935 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1936
aadc346a
JB
1937* Ada tasking support
1938
1939 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1940 been introduced:
1941
1942 info tasks
1943 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1944 info task N
1945 Print detailed information about task number N.
1946 task
1947 Print the task number of the current task.
1948 task N
1949 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1950
adb483fe
DJ
1951* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1952add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1953
2277426b
PA
1954* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1955
1956 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1957 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1958 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1959 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1960 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1961 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1962 below.
1963
08d16641
PA
1964* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1965"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1966information.
1967
e35359c5
UW
1968* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1969to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1970architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1971See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1972more information.
1973
85e747d2
UW
1974* Multi-architecture debugging.
1975
1976 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1977 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1978 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1979 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1980 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1981
1982* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1983use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1984Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1985powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1986--enable-targets configure option.
1987
11ade57a
PA
1988* Non-stop mode debugging.
1989
1990 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1991 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1992 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1993 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1994 section in the user manual for more information.
1995
1996 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1997 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1998 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1999 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2000 extensions on linux targets.
2001
d7713ae0 2002* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2003
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2004catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2005 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2006 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2007 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2008 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2009 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2010 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2011 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2012 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2013
08388c79
DE
2014find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2015 val1 [, val2, ...]
2016 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2017
d57a3c85
TJB
2018maint set python print-stack
2019maint show python print-stack
2020 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2021
2022python [CODE]
2023 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2024
d7713ae0
EZ
2025macro define
2026macro list
2027macro undef
2028 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2029 interactively.
2030
2031info os processes
2032 Show operating system information about processes.
2033
2277426b
PA
2034info inferiors
2035 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2036
2037inferior NUM
2038 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2039
2040detach inferior NUM
2041 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2042
2043kill inferior NUM
2044 Kill inferior number NUM.
2045
d7713ae0
EZ
2046* New options
2047
3285f3fe
UW
2048set spu stop-on-load
2049show spu stop-on-load
2050 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2051
ff1a52c6
UW
2052set spu auto-flush-cache
2053show spu auto-flush-cache
2054 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2055 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2056
d7713ae0
EZ
2057set sh calling-convention
2058show sh calling-convention
2059 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2060
e0a3ce09 2061set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2062show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2063 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2064
2065set disassemble-next-line
2066show disassemble-next-line
2067 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2068 the debuggee stops.
2069
2070set remote noack-packet
2071show remote noack-packet
2072 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2073 under "New remote packets."
2074
2075set remote query-attached-packet
2076show remote query-attached-packet
2077 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2078
2079set remote read-siginfo-object
2080show remote read-siginfo-object
2081 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2082 packet.
2083
2084set remote write-siginfo-object
2085show remote write-siginfo-object
2086 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2087 packet.
2088
40ab02ce
MS
2089set remote reverse-continue
2090show remote reverse-continue
2091 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2092
2093set remote reverse-step
2094show remote reverse-step
2095 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2096
d7713ae0
EZ
2097set displaced-stepping
2098show displaced-stepping
2099 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2100 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2101 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2102
2103set debug displaced
2104show debug displaced
2105 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2106
2107maint set internal-error
2108maint show internal-error
2109 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2110
2111maint set internal-warning
2112maint show internal-warning
2113 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2114
ccd213ac
DJ
2115set exec-wrapper
2116show exec-wrapper
2117unset exec-wrapper
2118 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2119
aad4b048
JB
2120set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2121show multiple-symbols
2122 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2123 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2124 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2125
74960c60
VP
2126set breakpoint always-inserted
2127show breakpoint always-inserted
2128 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2129 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2130 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2131
0428b8f5
DJ
2132set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2133show arm fallback-mode
2134set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2135show arm force-mode
2136 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2137 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2138 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2139 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2140
10568435
JK
2141set disable-randomization
2142show disable-randomization
2143 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2144 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2145 multiple debugging sessions.
2146
d7713ae0
EZ
2147set non-stop
2148show non-stop
2149 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2150 a breakpoint.
2151
b3eb342c 2152set target-async
d7713ae0 2153show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2154 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2155 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2156 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2157 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2158
6c7a06a3
TT
2159set target-wide-charset
2160show target-wide-charset
2161 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2162 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2163
84603566
SL
2164set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2165show tcp auto-retry
2166set tcp connect-timeout
2167show tcp connect-timeout
2168 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2169 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2170 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2171
17a37d48
PP
2172set libthread-db-search-path
2173show libthread-db-search-path
2174 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2175 libthread_db.
2176
d4db2f36
PA
2177set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2178show schedule-multiple
2179 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2180 the current process.
2181
4e5d721f
DE
2182set stack-cache
2183show stack-cache
2184 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2185 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2186 affecting correctness.
2187
910c5da8
JB
2188set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2189show interactive-mode
2190 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2191 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2192 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2193 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2194 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2195
2277426b
PA
2196* Removed commands
2197
2198info forks
2199 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2200 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2201 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2202 command.
2203
2204fork NUM
2205 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2206 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2207 alias for the `fork' command.
2208
2209process PID
2210 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2211 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2212 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2213
2214delete fork NUM
2215 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2216 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2217 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2218 fork' command.
2219
2220detach fork NUM
2221 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2222 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2223 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2224 fork' command.
2225
a80b95ba
TG
2226* New native configurations
2227
2228x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2229
b8bfd3ed
JB
2230x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2231
75a2d5e7
TT
2232* New targets
2233
c28c63d8 2234Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2235x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2236x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2237S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2238
6de3146c
PA
2239* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2240 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2241
d5cbbe6e
JB
2242* Removed commands
2243
2244catch load
2245catch unload
2246 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2247
75feb17d 2248*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2249
af5ca30d
NH
2250* New native configurations
2251
2252NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2253Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2254
2255* New targets
2256
2257NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2258Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2259
7a404eba
PA
2260* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2261
2262 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2263 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2264 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2265 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2266
430ebac9
PA
2267* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2268(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2269
fe6fbf8b 2270* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2271is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2272
2273* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2274including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2275and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2276
10665d76
JB
2277* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2278accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2279more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2280
7cc46491
DJ
2281* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2282
d71340b8
DJ
2283* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2284registers on PowerPC targets.
2285
523c4513
DJ
2286* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2287targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2288
a6b151f1
DJ
2289* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2290commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2291
2d717e4f
DJ
2292* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2293extended-remote mode.
2294
24a836bd 2295* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2296The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2297error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2298The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2299
d0c678e6
UW
2300* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2301building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2302target architectures.
2303
d64a946d
TJB
2304* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2305Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2306now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2307stored in two consecutive float registers.
2308
ee163bf5
VP
2309* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2310breakpoints now.
2311
b93b6ca7 2312* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2313Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2314include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2315 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2316 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2317 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2318 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2319 of an assignment
2320 - Improved command completion in Ada
2321 - Several bug fixes
2322
d001be7a
DJ
2323* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2324process.
2325
a6b151f1
DJ
2326* New commands
2327
6d53d0af
JB
2328set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2329show print frame-arguments
2330 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2331 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2332
a6b151f1
DJ
2333remote put
2334remote get
2335remote delete
2336 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2337
2338* New MI commands
2339
2340-target-file-put
2341-target-file-get
2342-target-file-delete
2343 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2344
2345* New remote packets
2346
2347vFile:open:
2348vFile:close:
2349vFile:pread:
2350vFile:pwrite:
2351vFile:unlink:
2352 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2353
2d717e4f
DJ
2354vAttach
2355 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2356 mode.
2357
2358vRun
2359 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2360
8d5f9c6f 2361*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2362
19d378fc
MS
2363* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2364bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2365Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2366
3a40aaa0
UW
2367* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2368symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2369-Bsymbolic linker option.
2370
a6ec25f2
BW
2371* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2372recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2373is not supported.
2374
6dd09645
JB
2375* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2376frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2377
c9bb8148
DJ
2378* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
237932-bit or 64-bit register values.
2380
0d5de010
DJ
2381* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2382
23181151
DJ
2383* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2384target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2385a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2386
ea37ba09
DJ
2387* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2388automatically displayed as character or string data.
2389
2390* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2391arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2392as strings.
e1f48ead 2393
123dc839
DJ
2394* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2395for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2396only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2397
05a4558a
DJ
2398* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2399iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2400
7c963485
PA
2401* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2402ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2403has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2404
b18be20d
DJ
2405* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2406
0ca420ce
UW
2407* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2408
31d99776
DJ
2409* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2410layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2411segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2412
a4642986
MR
2413* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2414immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2415
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2416* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2417"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2418packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2419where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2420Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2421
2422* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2423(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2424
2425* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2426according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2427
c9bb8148
DJ
2428* New commands
2429
23776285
MR
2430set remoteflow
2431show remoteflow
2432 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2433 when debugging using remote targets.
2434
c9bb8148
DJ
2435set mem inaccessible-by-default
2436show mem inaccessible-by-default
2437 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2438 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2439 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2440 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2441 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2442
2443set breakpoint auto-hw
2444show breakpoint auto-hw
2445 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2446 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2447 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2448 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2449 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2450 including "next" and "finish".
2451
0e420bd8
JB
2452catch exception
2453catch exception unhandled
2454 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2455
2456catch assert
2457 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2458
f822c95b
DJ
2459set sysroot
2460show sysroot
2461 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2462 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2463 an alias to "set sysroot".
2464
83cc5c53
UW
2465info spu
2466 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2467 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2468 architecture.
2469
bd372731
MK
2470* New native configurations
2471
2472OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2473
23181151
DJ
2474set tdesc filename
2475unset tdesc filename
2476show tdesc filename
2477 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2478 not query the target for its built-in description.
2479
c9bb8148
DJ
2480* New targets
2481
54fe9172 2482OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2483MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2484Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2485
6dd09645
JB
2486* New remote packets
2487
2488QPassSignals:
2489 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2490 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2491
23181151
DJ
2492qXfer:features:read:
2493 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2494 features.
6dd09645 2495
83cc5c53
UW
2496qXfer:spu:read:
2497qXfer:spu:write:
2498 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2499 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2500
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2501qXfer:libraries:read:
2502 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2503 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2504 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2505 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2506
483367ee
DJ
2507* Removed targets
2508
2509Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2510
d08950c4
UW
2511alpha*-*-osf1*
2512alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2513d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2514hppa*-*-hiux*
2515i[34567]86-ncr-*
2516i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2517i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2518i[34567]86-*-netware*
2519i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2520i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2521i[34567]86-*-sco*
2522i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2523i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2524i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2525i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2526i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2527i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2528i[34567]86-*-isc*
2529m68*-cisco*-*
2530m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2531mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2532rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2533sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2534
7ce59000
DJ
2535* Other removed features
2536
2537target abug
2538target cpu32bug
2539target est
2540target rom68k
2541
2542 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2543
ea35711c
DJ
2544target hms
2545target e7000
2546target sh3
2547target sh3e
2548
2549 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2550 H8/300.
2551
2552target ocd
2553
2554 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2555 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2556 interfaces.
2557
7ce59000
DJ
2558DWARF 1 support
2559
2560 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2561 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2562
54d61198
DJ
2563Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2564
2565 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2566 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2567 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2568 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2569
ea35711c
DJ
2570MIPS ".pdr" sections
2571
2572 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2573 in debugging information.
2574
2575Scheme support
2576
2577 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2578 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2579
1a69e1e4
DJ
2580set mips stack-arg-size
2581set mips saved-gpreg-size
2582
2583 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2584
6dd09645 2585*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2586
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2587* New targets
2588
2589Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2590Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2591
6aec2e11
DJ
2592* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2593(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2594running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2595
2596* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2597Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2598supported.
2599
17218d91
DJ
2600* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2601broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2602
9ebce043
DJ
2603* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2604stub provides the required support.
2605
7d3d3ece
DJ
2606* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2607longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2608
4f8253f3
JB
2609* New commands
2610
2611set substitute-path
2612unset substitute-path
2613show substitute-path
2614 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2615 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2616 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2617 between compilation and debugging.
2618
9fa66fd7
AS
2619set trace-commands
2620show trace-commands
2621 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2622 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2623 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2624
1f5befc1
DJ
2625* REMOVED features
2626
2627The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2628
2ec3381a
DJ
2629Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2630an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2631
3d00d119
DJ
2632The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2633
be2a5f71
DJ
2634* New remote packets
2635
2636qSupported:
2637 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2638 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2639 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2640 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2641 target.
2642
0876f84a
DJ
2643qXfer:auxv:read:
2644 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2645 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2646
9ebce043
DJ
2647qXfer:memory-map:read:
2648 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2649 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2650
2651vFlashErase:
2652vFlashWrite:
2653vFlashDone:
2654 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2655
0876f84a
DJ
2656* Removed remote packets
2657
2658qPart:auxv:read:
2659 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2660 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2661
e374b601 2662*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2663
96309189
MS
2664* New targets
2665
2666Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2667
2668Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2669
53e5f3cf
AS
2670* New commands
2671
2672init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2673 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2674
ac264b3b
MS
2675The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2676
2677checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2678
2679restart <n> Return the program state to a
2680 previously saved state.
2681
2682info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2683
2684delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2685
2686set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2687 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2688
2689info forks List forks of the user program that
2690 are available to be debugged.
2691
2692fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2693 forks of the user program that are
2694 available to be debugged.
2695
2696delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2697 that are available to be debugged (and
2698 kill the forked process).
2699
2700detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2701 that are available to be debugged (and
2702 allow the process to continue).
2703
3950dc3f
NS
2704* New architecture
2705
2706Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2707
0ea3f30e
DJ
2708* Improved Windows host support
2709
2710GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2711native console support, and remote communications using either
2712network sockets or serial ports.
2713
f79daebb
GM
2714* Improved Modula-2 language support
2715
2716GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2717basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2718pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2719printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2720written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2721GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2722
acab6ab2
MM
2723* REMOVED features
2724
2725The ARM rdi-share module.
2726
f4267320
DJ
2727The Netware NLM debug server.
2728
53e5f3cf 2729*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2730
e0ecbda1
MK
2731* New native configurations
2732
02a677ac 2733OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2734OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2735
d64a6579
KB
2736* New targets
2737
2738Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2739
b33a6190
AS
2740* New command line options
2741
2742--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2743--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2744 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2745--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2746 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2747 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2748 with the --command (-x) option.
2749
11dced61
AC
2750* Deprecated commands removed
2751
2752The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2753removed:
2754
2755 Command Replacement
2756 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2757 othernames set arm disassembler
2758 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2759 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2760 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2761 regs info registers
2762
6fe85783
MK
2763* New BSD user-level threads support
2764
2765It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2766library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2767configurations are:
2768
2769FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2770FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2771OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2772
2773Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2774are not yet supported.
2775
5260ca71
MS
2776* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2777(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2778
e84ecc99
AC
2779* REMOVED configurations and files
2780
2781VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2782Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2783National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2784
31e35378
JB
2785* New "set print array-indexes" command
2786
2787After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2788when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2789behavior.
2790
e85e5c83
MK
2791* VAX floating point support
2792
2793GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2794
d91e9901
AS
2795* User-defined command support
2796
2797In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2798to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2799section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2800
f2cb65ca
MC
2801*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2802
f47b1503
AS
2803* New command line option
2804
2805GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2806debugging.
2807
f2cb65ca
MC
2808* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2809
2810GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2811information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2812by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2813proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2814to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2815
d08c0230
AC
2816* Internationalization
2817
2818When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2819internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2820continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2821
117ea3cf
PH
2822* Ada
2823
2824Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2825implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2826into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2827
d08c0230
AC
2828* New native configurations
2829
2830GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2831
2832* Remote 'p' packet
2833
2834GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2835packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2836
2837* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2838
2839GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2840The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2841features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2842i386 application).
2843
2844GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2845compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2846continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2847configurations:
2848
2849hppa-*-hpux
2850ia64-*-aix
2851mips-*-irix*
2852*-*-lynx
2853mips-*-linux-gnu
2854sds protocol
2855xdr protocol
2856powerpc bdm protocol
2857
2858Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2859made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2860
2861* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2862
2863Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2864been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2865configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2866permanently REMOVED.
2867
2868h8300-*-*
2869mcore-*-*
2870mn10300-*-*
2871ns32k-*-*
2872sh64-*-*
2873v850-*-*
2874
ebb7c577
AC
2875*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2876
2877* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2878
2879When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2880heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2881been fixed.
2882
2883* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2884
2885When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2886fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2887IRIX long double values).
2888
2889* VAX and "next"
2890
2891A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2892command. This problem has been fixed.
2893
860660cb 2894*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2895
0dea2468
AC
2896* Fix for ``many threads''
2897
2898On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2899rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2900error message:
2901
2902 ptrace: No such process.
2903 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2904
2905This problem has been fixed.
2906
2c07db7a
AC
2907* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2908
2909Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2910GDB to dump core).
2911
c23968a2
JB
2912* New ``start'' command.
2913
2914This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2915
71009278
MK
2916* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2917
2918Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2919live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2920platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2921
2922FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2923FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2924NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2925NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2926NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2927OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2928OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2929OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2930OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2931
3c0b7db2
AC
2932* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2933
2934Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2935These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2936of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2937call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2938signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2939
73cc75f3
AC
2940Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2941features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2942include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2943
7243600a
BF
2944* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2945
6f606e1c
MK
2946* New native configurations
2947
97dc871c 2948GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2949OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2950OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2951OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2952OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2953NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2954OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2955
a1b461bf
AC
2956* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2957
2958GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2959The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2960including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2961migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2962compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2963work, was also included.
2964
2965GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2966module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2967
2968h8300-*-*
2969mcore-*-*
2970mn10300-*-*
2971ns32k-*-*
2972sh64-*-*
2973v850-*-*
2974xstormy16-*-*
2975
2976Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2977made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2978
3c7012f5
AC
2979* REMOVED configurations and files
2980
2981Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2982Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2983Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2984Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2985Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2986AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2987Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2988decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2989riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2990sonymips mips-sony-*
2991sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2992
e5fe55f7
AC
2993*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2994
2995* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2996
2997The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2998GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2999command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3000program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3001with GDB".
3002
3003* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3004
3005Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3006libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3007cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3008GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3009shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3010the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3011are created.
3012
3013Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3014
3015* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3016
3017The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3018non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3019compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3020
3021* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3022
3023Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3024wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3025
3026* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3027
3028The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3029permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3030systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3031
3032* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3033
3034Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3035has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3036
3037* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3038
3039GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3040its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3041panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3042
3043* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3044
3045When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3046by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3047not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3048
faae5abe 3049*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3050
9175c9a3
MC
3051* Removed --with-mmalloc
3052
3053Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3054conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3055
3cc87ec0
MK
3056* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3057
3058The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3059the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3060and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3061you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3062
f0424ef6
MK
3063* Revised SPARC target
3064
3065The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3066FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3067support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3068from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3069(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3070
59659be2
ILT
3071* New C++ demangler
3072
3073GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3074names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3075with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3076programs.
3077
9e08b29b
DJ
3078* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3079
3080GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3081arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3082encountered these.
3083
8dfe8985
DC
3084* C++ nested types and namespaces
3085
3086GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3087improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3088is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3089Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3090namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3091"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3092frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3093if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3094GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3095
cced5e27
MK
3096* New native configurations
3097
3098NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3099OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3100OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3101OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3102OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3103
b4b4b794
KI
3104* New debugging protocols
3105
3106M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3107
7989c619
AC
3108* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3109
3110The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3111and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3112tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3113
5994185b
AC
3114* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3115
3116Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3117been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3118configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3119permanently REMOVED.
3120
3121Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3122Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3123Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3124Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3125Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3126AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3127Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3128decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3129riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3130sonymips mips-sony-*
3131sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3132
0ddabb4c
AC
3133* REMOVED configurations and files
3134
3135SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3136SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3137Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3138Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3139H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3140HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3141HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3142HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3143PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3144386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3145Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3146 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3147 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3148SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3149SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3150Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3151Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3152
c7f1390e
DJ
3153*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3154
1fe43d45
AC
3155* Objective-C
3156
3157Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3158integrated into GDB.
3159
e6beb428
AC
3160* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3161
3162DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3163information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3164By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3165backtraces.
3166
3167The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3168have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3169DWARF 2 CFI support.
3170
3171* Hosted file I/O.
3172
3173GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3174file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3175remote protocol documentation for details.
3176
3177* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3178
3179All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3180architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3181to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3182ppc32 on ppc64).
3183
3184* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3185
3186GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3187per-thread variables.
3188
3189* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3190
3191GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3192GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3193
3194* Separate debug info.
3195
3196GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3197automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3198of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3199system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3200and optional debug files.
3201
3202* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3203
3204DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3205describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3206debugger.
3207
3208GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3209for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3210
3211* Java
3212
3213A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3214Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3215considered "useable".
3216
85f8f974
DJ
3217* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3218
3219The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3220commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3221kernel.
3222
0fac0b41
DJ
3223* GDB supports logging output to a file
3224
3225There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3226used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3227
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3228* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3229
3230The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3231disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3232command.
3233
e286caf2 3234* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3235
3236The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3237registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3238
d28f9cdf
DJ
3239* Profiling support
3240
3241A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3242be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3243session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3244"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3245data, for more informative profiling results.
3246
da0f9dcd
AC
3247* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3248
3249The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3250option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3251"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3252
3253Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3254removed.
3255
fb9b6b35
JJ
3256Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3257Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3258Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3259 in a subsequent -var-update.
3260
954a4db8
MK
3261* New native configurations.
3262
3263FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3264
6760f9e6
JB
3265* Multi-arched targets.
3266
b4263afa 3267HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3268Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3269
1b831c93
AC
3270* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3271
3272Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3273been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3274configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3275permanently REMOVED.
3276
8b0e5691 3277Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3278Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3279H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3280HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3281HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3282HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3283PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3284Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3285 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3286 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3287Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3288Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3289
5835abe7
NC
3290* REMOVED configurations and files
3291
3292V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3293Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3294IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3295i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3296i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3297i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3298HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3299 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3300 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3301Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3302Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3303Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3304OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3305I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3306
a094c6fb
AC
3307* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3308
3309The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3310the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3311context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3312address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3313The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3314
299ffc64 3315*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3316
46248966
AC
3317* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3318
3319When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3320`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3321in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3322library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3323shared libs like mad''.
3324
b9d14705 3325* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3326
b9d14705
DJ
3327Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3328the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3329arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3330powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3331
e0e9281e
JB
3332* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3333
3334GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3335and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3336they expand.
3337
dd73b9bb
AC
3338The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3339invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3340
3341The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3342macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3343
e0e9281e
JB
3344Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3345information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3346your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3347information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3348
2250ee0c
CV
3349* Multi-arched targets.
3350
6e3ba3b8
JT
3351DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3352DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3353NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3354National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3355Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3356Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3357
cd9bfe15 3358* New targets.
e33ce519 3359
456f8b9d
DB
3360Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3361
e33ce519 3362
da8ca43d
JT
3363* New native configurations
3364
3365Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3366SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3367MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3368UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3369
cd9bfe15
AC
3370* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3371
3372Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3373been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3374configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3375permanently REMOVED.
3376
92eb23c5 3377Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3378OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3379IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3380Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3381Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3382Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3383i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3384i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3385i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3386HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3387 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3388 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3389I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3390
db034ac5
AC
3391* OBSOLETE languages
3392
3393CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3394
cd9bfe15
AC
3395* REMOVED configurations and files
3396
3397AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3398A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3399AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3400AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3401AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3402
3403testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3404
20f01a46
DH
3405* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3406
3407This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3408commands. The default is 1024.
3409
a5941fbf
MK
3410* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3411
3412Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3413
89743e04
MS
3414* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3415
3416These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3417to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3418from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3419
9fb14e79
JB
3420* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3421
3422The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3423including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3424of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3425
2037aebb
AC
3426*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3427
3428* New targets.
3429
3430Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3431
3432* Bug fixes
3433
3434gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3435mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3436Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3437
3438gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3439dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3440Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3441
3442Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3443Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3444By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3445
3446i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3447avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3448By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3449
37057839 3450*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3451
1a703748
MS
3452* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3453
3454This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3455really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3456In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3457target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3458This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3459(notably embedded) targets.
3460
cefd4ef5
MS
3461* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3462
55241689
AC
3463This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3464process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3465GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3466hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3467
352ed7b4
MS
3468* New command line option
3469
3470GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3471
3472* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3473
3474There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3475command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3476a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3477be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3478open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3479issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3480a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3481it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3482GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3483is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3484
fe419ffc
RE
3485* Changes in ARM configurations.
3486
3487Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3488configuration is fully multi-arch.
3489
eb7cedd9
MK
3490* New native configurations
3491
fe419ffc 3492ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3493x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3494AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3495Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3496
c9f63e6b
CV
3497* New targets
3498
3499Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3500
9b4ff276
AC
3501* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3502
3503Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3504been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3505configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3506permanently REMOVED.
3507
3508AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3509A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3510AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3511AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3512AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3513
b4ceaee6 3514testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3515
e2caac18
AC
3516* REMOVED configurations and files
3517
3518TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3519WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3520PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3521PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3522PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3523Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3524Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3525 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3526SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3527Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3528Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3529ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3530Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3531
c2a727fa
TT
3532* Changes to command line processing
3533
3534The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3535for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3536
467d8519
TT
3537* Changes to key bindings
3538
3539There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3540
7072a954
AC
3541*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3542
3543Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3544
3545Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3546corrupted.
3547
3548Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3549
3550Numerous documentation fixes.
3551
3552Numerous testsuite fixes.
3553
34f47bc4 3554*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3555
3556* New native configurations
3557
3558Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3559x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3560MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3561MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3562ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3563s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3564
bf64bfd6
AC
3565* New targets
3566
def90278 3567Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3568CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3569UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3570
17e78a56 3571* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3572
3573x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3574Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3575Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3576 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3577TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3578WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3579Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3580PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3581PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3582PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3583SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3584Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3585ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3586Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3587
17e78a56
AC
3588stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3589kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3590
7fcca85b
AC
3591Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3592been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3593configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3594permanently REMOVED.
3595
a196c81c 3596* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3597
3598Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3599Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3600Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3601ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3602Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3603ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3604
6d6b80e5 3605* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3606
6d6b80e5 3607GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3608sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3609present.
3610
bf64bfd6
AC
3611* Other news:
3612
e23194cb
EZ
3613* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3614
3615* The MI enabled by default.
3616
3617The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3618revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3619engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3620using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3621which is now deprecated.
3622
3623* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3624
3625GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3626main features are supported:
3627
3628 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3629
3630 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3631 extension;
3632
3633 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3634
3635 - a Pascal expression parser.
3636
3637However, some important features are not yet supported.
3638
3639 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3640
3641 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3642
3643 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3644 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3645
3646 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3647
3648 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3649
3650* Changes in completion.
3651
3652Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3653to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3654users expect at the shell prompt.
3655
3656Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3657`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3658program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3659files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3660be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3661considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3662name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3663
3664`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3665
3666* New platform-independent commands:
3667
3668It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3669hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3670documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3671
3672* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3673
d7275149
MK
3674Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3675revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3676many threads as your system allows you to have.
3677
e23194cb
EZ
3678Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3679
d7275149
MK
3680Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3681multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3682
3683* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3684
3685Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3686
e23194cb
EZ
3687GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3688debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3689supported.)
3690
3691* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3692
3693Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3694breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3695implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3696put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3697and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3698registers.
3699
3700The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3701debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3702watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3703
3704* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3705
3706New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3707the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3708
3709New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3710display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3711IDT.
3712
3713New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3714from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3715New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3716a given linear address.
3717
3718GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3719program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3720which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3721
3722DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3723
6c56c069
EZ
3724It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3725
e23194cb
EZ
3726* Changes in documentation.
3727
3728All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3729Documentation License.
3730
3731Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3732manual.
3733
3734TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3735
3736Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3737manual.
3738
3739The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3740documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3741hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3742
5d6640b1
AC
3743* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3744
3745The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3746``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3747contents of this file.
3748
1a1d8446
AC
3749* gdba.el deleted
3750
3751GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3752
9debab2f 3753*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3754
c63ce875
EZ
3755* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3756
3757Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3758programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3759displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3760greater level of detail.
3761
3762* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3763
3764It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3765bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3766on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3767written.
3768
3769* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3770
3771The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3772necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3773machines ``out of the box''.
3774
3775The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3776possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3777signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3778would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3779interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3780
3781It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3782standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3783even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3784and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3785terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3786
3787The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3788enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3789also works.
3790
3791DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3792GDB.
3793
3794It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3795directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3796times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3797breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3798
ed9a39eb
JM
3799* New native configurations
3800
3801ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3802PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3803
7a292a7a
SS
3804* New targets
3805
96baa820 3806Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3807x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3808PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3809TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3810
085dd6e6
JM
3811* OBSOLETE configurations
3812
3813Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3814Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3815Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3816ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3817Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3818
9debab2f
AC
3819Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3820but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3821these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3822be permanently REMOVED.
3823
5330533d
SS
3824* Gould support removed
3825
3826Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3827
bc9e5bbf
AC
3828* New features for SVR4
3829
3830On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3831without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3832load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3833
3834* Many C++ enhancements
3835
3836C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3837in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3838
adf40b2e
JM
3839* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3840
3841A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3842sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3843with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3844``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3845
3846 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3847 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3848
43e526b9
JM
3849* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3850
3851A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3852expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3853instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3854
3855The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3856added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3857
96baa820
JM
3858* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3859
3860The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3861``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3862include ``set remote P-packet''.
3863
11cf8741
JM
3864* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3865
3866The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3867accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3868``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3869
7876dd43
DB
3870* ``apropos'' command added.
3871
3872The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3873documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3874try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3875
bc9e5bbf
AC
3876* New MI interface
3877
3878A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3879interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3880process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3881"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3882enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3883
3884 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3885
c906108c
SS
3886*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3887
3888* New native configurations
3889
3890HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3891HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3892M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3893
3894* New targets
3895
3896Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3897Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3898Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3899
3900* OBSOLETE configurations
3901
3902Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3903
3904Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3905but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3906these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3907be permanently REMOVED.
3908
3909* ANSI/ISO C
3910
3911As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3912buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3913containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3914use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3915available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3916configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3917information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3918already.
3919
3920* Readline 2.2
3921
3922GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3923
3924* set extension-language
3925
3926You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3927languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3928you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3929 set extension-language .c c++
3930The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3931and their associated languages.
3932
3933* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3934
3935When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3936you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3937PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3938
3939 set processor NAME
3940
3941sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3942following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3943
3944 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3945 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3946 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3947 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3948 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3949 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3950 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3951 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3952 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3953 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3954 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3955
3956At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3957special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3958registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3959only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3960
3961* HP-UX support
3962
3963Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3964more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3965library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3966support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3967for xdb and dbx commands.
3968
3969* Catchpoints
3970
3971HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3972generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3973to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3974
3975This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3976argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3977output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3978
3979* Debugging across forks
3980
3981On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3982in the inferior.
3983
3984* TUI
3985
3986HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3987it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3988configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3989
3990* GDB remote protocol additions
3991
3992A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3993Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3994fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3995allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3996
3997For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3998full 64-bit address. The command
3999
4000 set remoteaddresssize 32
4001
4002can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4003the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4004will be discarded.
4005
4006In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4007command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4008
4009 maint packet heythere
4010
4011sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4012disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4013time.
4014
4015The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4016target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4017downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4018
4019* Tracing can collect general expressions
4020
4021You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4022further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4023doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4024
4025* mask-address variable for Mips
4026
4027For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4028a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4029of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4030
4031* Higher serial baud rates
4032
4033GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4034230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4035to achieve all of these rates.)
4036
4037* i960 simulator
4038
4039The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4040builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4041
4042
4043*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4044
4045* New native configurations
4046
4047Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4048Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4049Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4050PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4051PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4052Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4053Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4054
4055* New targets
4056
4057Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4058Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4059Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4060Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4061MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4062MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4063MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4064Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4065Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4066Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4067NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4068
4069* New debugging protocols
4070
4071ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4072M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4073DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4074PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4075PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4076Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4077
4078* DWARF 2
4079
4080All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4081format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4082information.
4083
4084* Java frontend
4085
4086GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4087only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4088
4089* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4090
4091For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4092loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4093locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4094
4095* Live range splitting
4096
4097GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4098range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4099more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4100
4101* Hurd support
4102
4103GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4104updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4105
4106* ARM Thumb support
4107
4108GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4109instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4110instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4111accordingly.
4112
4113* MIPS16 support
4114
4115GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4116instruction set.
4117
4118* Overlay support
4119
4120GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4121linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4122will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4123control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4124additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4125in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4126
4127* info symbol
4128
4129The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4130the symbol at the specified address.
4131
4132* Trace support
4133
4134The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4135asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4136extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4137includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4138file tracepoint.c for more details.
4139
4140* MIPS simulator
4141
4142Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4143by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4144of most MIPS variants.
4145
4146* Sparc simulator
4147
4148Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4149by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4150Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4151
4152* set architecture
4153
4154For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4155basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4156architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4157the possible architectures.
4158
4159*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4160
4161* New native configurations
4162
4163Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4164M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4165PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4166PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4167PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4168RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4169
4170* New targets
4171
4172ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4173I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4174MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4175MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4176PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4177Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4178Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4179
4180* PowerPC simulator
4181
4182The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4183contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4184PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4185basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4186performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4187
4188* Solaris 2.5
4189
4190GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4191
4192* Windows 95/NT native
4193
4194GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4195To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4196which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4197Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4198ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4199
4200* dont-repeat command
4201
4202If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4203command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4204useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4205extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4206
4207* Send break instead of ^C
4208
4209The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4210rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4211GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4212
4213* Remote protocol timeout
4214
4215The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4216that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4217to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4218
4219* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4220
4221By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4222loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4223stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4224when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4225in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4226
4227Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4228/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4229automatically on hpux10.
4230
4231* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4232
4233Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4234
4235* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4236
4237When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4238may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4239the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4240every character. The default value is 1050.
4241
4242* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4243
4244If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4245a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4246replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4247details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4248remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4249to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4250
4251* Speedups for remote debugging
4252
4253GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4254the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4255and more efficient S-record downloading.
4256
4257* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4258
4259GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4260Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4261
4262*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4263
4264* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4265
4266The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4267can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4268
4269* Remote targets use caching
4270
4271Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4272remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4273it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4274debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4275off' turns the the data cache off.
4276
4277* Remote targets may have threads
4278
4279The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4280in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4281gdb/remote.c for details.
4282
4283* NetROM support
4284
4285If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4286support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4287acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4288write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4289support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4290another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4291sequence is something like
4292
4293 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4294 load <prog>
4295 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4296
4297* Macintosh host
4298
4299GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4300may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4301it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4302available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4303device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4304directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4305scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4306mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4307
4308* Autoconf
4309
4310GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4311but does simplify configuration and building.
4312
4313* hpux10
4314
4315GDB now supports hpux10.
4316
4317*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4318
4319* New native configurations
4320
4321x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4322x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4323NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4324Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4325
4326* New targets
4327
4328A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4329HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4330CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4331PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4332WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4333
4334* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4335
4336GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4337possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4338filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4339the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4340if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4341
4342* Arguments to user-defined commands
4343
4344User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4345Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4346trivial example:
4347define adder
4348 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4349
4350To execute the command use:
4351adder 1 2 3
4352
4353Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4354Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4355use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4356
4357* New `if' and `while' commands
4358
4359This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4360commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4361expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4362execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4363terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4364`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4365if the expression is zero.
4366
4367* Fortran source language mode
4368
4369GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4370Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4371variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4372with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4373Fortran compilers.
4374
4375* Better HPUX support
4376
4377Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4378running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4379processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4380for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4381that behavior do the following before running the program:
4382
4383 adb -w a.out
4384 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4385 control-d
4386
4387This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4388To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4389
4390 adb -w a.out
4391 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4392 control-d
4393
4394You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4395the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4396external linkage.
4397
4398GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4399HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4400
4401* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4402
4403You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4404commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4405current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4406"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4407associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4408configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4409
4410* New DOS host serial code
4411
4412This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4413no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4414a PC's serial port.
4415
4416*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4417
4418* New "complete" command
4419
4420This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4421were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4422
4423* Trailing space optional in prompt
4424
4425"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4426allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4427
4428* Breakpoint hit counts
4429
4430"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4431has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4432can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4433to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4434less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4435that breakpoint.
4436
4437* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4438
4439"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4440an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4441arrays actually contain only short strings.
4442
4443* Shared library breakpoints
4444
4445In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4446breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4447
4448* Hardware watchpoints
4449
4450There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4451targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4452
55241689 4453Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4454
4455* Annotations
4456
4457Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4458and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4459
4460* Improved Irix 5 support
4461
4462GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4463
4464* Improved HPPA support
4465
4466GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4467
4468* New native configurations
4469
4470Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4471HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4472Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4473RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4474
4475* New targets
4476
4477OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4478MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4479Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4480
4481* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4482
4483There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4484This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4485
4486* Fixes
4487
4488As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4489and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4490
4491*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4492
4493* Irix 5 is now supported
4494
4495* HPPA support
4496
4497GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4498to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4499GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4500of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4501can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4502
4503
4504*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4505
4506* User visible changes:
4507
4508* Remote Debugging
4509
4510The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4511target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4512debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4513integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4514debugging info for the mips target).
4515
4516* DEC Alpha native support
4517
4518GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4519debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4520work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4521Alpha-specific notes.
4522
4523* Preliminary thread implementation
4524
4525GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4526
4527* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4528
4529This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4530to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4531for details).
4532
4533* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4534
4535This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4536mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4537call methods, ...etc.
4538
4539*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4540
4541 * User visible changes:
4542
4543Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4544supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4545other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4546somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4547
4548Filename completion now works.
4549
4550When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4551arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4552addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4553
4554All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4555vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4556should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4557your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4558to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4559
4560 * DEC alpha support
4561
4562This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4563cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4564
4565
4566*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4567
4568 * Testsuite
4569
4570This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4571The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4572via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4573
4574 * C++ demangling
4575
4576'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4577emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4578Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4579disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4580use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4581
4582 * Simulators
4583
4584GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4585So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4586Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4587
4588 * New targets supported
4589
4590H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4591H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4592SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4593Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4594IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4595
4596Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4597version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4598GO32 memory extender.
4599
4600 * New remote protocols
4601
4602MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4603
4604 * New source languages supported
4605
4606This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4607used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4608into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4609
4610
4611*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4612
4613 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4614
4615GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4616version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4617University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4618compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4619format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4620(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4621
4622Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4623
4624 * Faster and better demangling
4625
4626We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4627demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4628character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4629only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4630This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4631increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4632symbol lookups.
4633
4634`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4635from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4636compiler does not actually implement.
4637
4638 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4639
4640In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4641inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4642recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4643very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4644The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4645circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4646fix.
4647
4648The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4649release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4650
4651 * Improved configure script
4652
4653The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4654you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4655host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4656done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4657
4658We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4659version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4660`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4661The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4662only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4663We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4664
4665 * Documentation improvements
4666
4667There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4668produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4669before submitting changes.
4670
4671The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4672M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4673`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4674you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4675a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4676
4677*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4678We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4679been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4680or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4681`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4682around this problem.
4683
4684 * New features
4685
4686GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4687the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4688`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4689the target program.
4690
4691The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4692how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4693
4694 * New native hosts supported
4695
4696HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4697386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4698
4699 * New targets supported
4700
4701AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4702
4703 * New file formats supported
4704
4705BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4706HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4707
4708 * Major bug fixes
4709
4710Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4711
4712We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4713printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4714
4715We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4716for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4717release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4718
4719You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4720will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4721
4722We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4723for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4724especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4725libraries.
4726
4727The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4728information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4729command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4730any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4731when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4732
4733 * Internal improvements
4734
4735GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4736debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4737
4738GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4739Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4740symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4741contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4742shared code that handles any of them.
4743
4744 * New command line options
4745
4746We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4747
4748 * Mmalloc licensing
4749
4750The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4751General Public License.
4752
4753*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4754
4755 * Host/native/target split
4756
4757GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4758hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4759target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4760local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4761ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4762
4763The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4764GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4765is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4766code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4767any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4768built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4769handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4770
4771GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4772It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4773plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4774
4775 * New hosts supported
4776
4777HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4778386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4779386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4780
4781 * New targets supported
4782
4783Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
478468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4785
4786 * New native hosts supported
4787
4788386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4789 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4790386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4791
4792 * New file formats supported
4793
4794BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4795supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4796format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4797
4798 * New commands
4799
4800`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4801`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4802These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4803
4804`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4805
4806You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4807scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4808prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4809executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4810
4811 * C++ improvements
4812
4813We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4814info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4815symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4816
4817Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4818
4819 * Major bug fixes
4820
4821The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4822fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4823by the compiler.
4824
4825We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4826support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4827
4828John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4829slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4830that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4831purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4832the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4833mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4834
4835Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4836about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4837completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4838we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4839
4840 * AMD 29k support
4841
4842A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4843specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4844calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4845usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4846in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4847
4848We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4849Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4850of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4851resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4852
4853 * Remote interfaces
4854
4855We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4856with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4857message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4858This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4859needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4860breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4861each instruction being stepped through.
4862
4863The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4864registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4865
4866There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4867find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4868Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4869processor with a serial port.
4870
4871 * Configuration
4872
4873Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4874`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4875supported, and what files each one uses.
4876
4877 * Library changes
4878
4879There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4880disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4881Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4882disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4883
4884The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4885Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4886can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4887grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4888
4889 * Documentation
4890
4891The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4892reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4893as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4894encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4895system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4896bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4897
4898And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4899
4900
4901*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4902
4903 * Better support for C++ function names
4904
4905GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4906names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4907(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4908single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4909Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4910
4911GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4912the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4913You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4914lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4915for the list of formats.
4916
4917 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4918
4919Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4920C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4921directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4922can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4923usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4924about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4925this problem.)
4926
4927 * New 'maintenance' command
4928
4929All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4930the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4931can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4932
4933 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4934 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4935 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4936 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4937 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4938 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4939
4940The following commands are new:
4941
4942 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4943 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4944 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4945
4946 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4947
4948We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4949(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4950be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4951read after argv processing.
4952
4953 * New hosts supported
4954
4955Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4956
55241689 4957GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4958
4959We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4960is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4961for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4962masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4963fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4964It costs extra.
4965
4966 * New targets supported
4967
4968Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4969
4970 * More smarts about finding #include files
4971
4972GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4973all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4974greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4975especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4976the one that contains your sources.
4977
4978We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4979breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4980try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4981
4982 * Interesting infernals change
4983
4984GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4985section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4986target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4987stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4988
4989 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4990
4991There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4992 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4993 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4994
4995See the ChangeLog for details.
4996
4997*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4998
4999 * New machines supported (host and target)
5000
5001IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5002
5003SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5004
5005 * New malloc package
5006
5007GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5008Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5009capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5010This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5011pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5012more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5013
5014 * info proc
5015
5016The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5017'help info proc' for details.
5018
5019 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5020
5021The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5022Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5023possible.
5024
5025 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5026
5027Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5028support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5029conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5030environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5031that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5032in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5033
5034 * Cross byte order fixes
5035
5036Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5037targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5038
5039 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5040
5041If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5042system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5043`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5044program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5045called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5046Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5047and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5048the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5049option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5050starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5051
5052You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5053the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5054information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5055slower, but makes future operations faster.
5056
5057The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5058build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5059A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5060use is:
5061
5062 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5063
5064The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5065It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5066shared across multiple host platforms.
5067
5068 * longjmp() handling
5069
5070GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5071siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5072all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5073platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5074
5075 * Solaris 2.0
5076
5077Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5078this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5079reading symbols.
5080
5081 * Bug fixes
5082
5083As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5084People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5085crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5086
5087*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5088
5089 * New machines supported (host and target)
5090
5091SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5092 (except core files)
5093BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5094Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5095
5096 * New machines supported (target)
5097
5098AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5099
5100 * C++ support
5101
5102GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5103The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5104per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5105
5106GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5107`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5108extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5109good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5110will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5111released.
5112
5113 * New features for SVR4
5114
5115GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5116shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5117only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5118
5119The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5120on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5121it prints the address mappings of the process.
5122
5123If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5124bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5125
5126 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5127
5128Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5129now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5130skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5131make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5132same code linked statically.
5133
5134 * New Getopt
5135
5136GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5137version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5138continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5139Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5140added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5141future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5142
5143 * Bugs fixed
5144
5145The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5146Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5147See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5148
5149
5150*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5151
5152 * New machines supported (host and target)
5153
5154Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5155NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5156Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5157
5158 * Almost SCO Unix support
5159
5160We had hoped to support:
5161SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5162(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5163that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5164about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5165
5166 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5167
5168GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5169debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5170is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5171send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5172reqired (if any).
5173
5174 * New Readline
5175
5176GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5177is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5178required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5179
5180 * Bugs fixed
5181
5182The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5183Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5184See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5185
5186 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5187
5188GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5189supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5190symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5191
5192Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5193mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5194debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5195mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5196version 2.
5197
5198Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5199really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5200line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5201variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5202situation somewhat.
5203
5204When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5205However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5206methods.
5207
5208We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5209DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5210encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5211
5212
5213*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5214
5215 * Improved configuration
5216
5217Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5218Porting BFD is simpler.
5219
5220 * Stepping improved
5221
5222The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5223of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5224in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5225function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5226
5227 * Bug fixing
5228
5229Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5230
5231 * New host supported (not target)
5232
5233Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5234
5235
5236*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5237
5238 * Multiple source language support
5239
5240GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5241It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5242and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5243language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5244You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5245`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5246
5247 * GDB and Modula-2
5248
5249GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5250currently under development at the State University of New York at
5251Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5252continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5253
5254Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5255debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5256symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5257
5258There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5259in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5260
5261 * set write on/off
5262
5263GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5264a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5265the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5266by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5267effect immediately.
5268
5269 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5270
5271When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5272shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5273The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5274examining core files.
5275
5276 * set listsize
5277
5278You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5279The default is 10.
5280
5281 * New machines supported (host and target)
5282
5283SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5284Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5285Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5286
5287 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5288
5289IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5290
5291 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5292
5293AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5294AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5295Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5296
5297 * New remote interfaces
5298
5299AMD 29000 Adapt
5300AMD 29000 Minimon
5301
5302
5303*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5304
5305 * New Facilities
5306
5307Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5308
5309Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5310target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5311is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5312remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5313remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5314also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5315using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5316stub on the target system.
5317
5318New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5319
5320GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5321library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5322object file types such as a.out and coff.
5323
5324There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5325refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5326
5327
5328 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5329
5330All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5331by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5332
5333For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5334``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5335Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5336
5337What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5338print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5339will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5340all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5341
5342confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5343 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5344 it is already running. Default is ON.
5345
5346editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5347 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5348 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5349 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5350 Default is ON.
5351
5352history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5353 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5354 or the value of the environment variable
5355 GDBHISTFILE.
5356
5357history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5358 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5359 HISTSIZE.
5360
5361history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5362 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5363 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5364
5365history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5366 history expansion will be performed on
5367 command line input. The default is OFF.
5368
5369radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5370 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5371 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5372
5373height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5374 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5375 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5376 variable TERM.
5377
5378width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5379 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5380 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5381 variable TERM.
5382
5383Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5384``set width'' instead.
5385
5386print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5387 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5388 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5389 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5390
5391print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5392 is OFF.
5393
5394print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5395 "raw" form if off.
5396
5397print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5398 like instructions.
5399
5400print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5401
5402
5403 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5404
5405The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5406new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5407are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5408window.
5409
5410
5411 * Support for Shared Libraries
5412
5413GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5414Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5415before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5416happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5417At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5418from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5419shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5420It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5421
5422sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5423 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5424 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5425
5426info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5427
5428
5429 * Watchpoints
5430
5431A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5432expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5433tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5434quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5435problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5436more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5437
5438watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5439
5440info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5441
5442delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5443disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5444enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5445
5446
5447 * C++ multiple inheritance
5448
5449When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5450for C++ programs.
5451
5452 * C++ exception handling
5453
5454Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5455ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5456the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5457handler's context).
5458
5459catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5460 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5461 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5462
5463info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5464 current stack frame.
5465
5466
5467 * Minor command changes
5468
5469The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5470command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5471is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5472
5473The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5474at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5475frames without printing.
5476
5477 * New directory command
5478
5479'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5480The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5481about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5482with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5483find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5484
5485 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5486
5487For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5488for more details.
5489
5490GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5491two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5492Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5493where the program that you are debugging will run.
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