gdb
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
8d5b6c2b 4*** Changes since GDB 7.4
d6e00af6 5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
9
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10* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
11 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
12
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13* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
14 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
15
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16* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
17 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
18 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
19 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
20 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
21 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
22
23* Python scripting
24
25 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
26 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
27
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28*** Changes in GDB 7.4
29
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30* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
31 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
32 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
33 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
34 inferior changes.
35
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36* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
37 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
38
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39* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
40 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
41 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
42 target hardware watchpoint.
43
44 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
45 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
46 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
47 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
48
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49* Python scripting
50
32d1c362 51 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 52 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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53 existing one.
54
3a7bf607 55 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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56 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
57 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
58 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
59 now "message", which just prints the error message without
60 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 61
baacfb07 62 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 63 Python API.
713389e0 64
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65 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
66 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 67 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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68 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
69 corresponding value.
70
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71 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
72 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
73 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
74 on GDB start-up.
75
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76 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
77 static_block will return the global and static blocks
78 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
79 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
80
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81 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
82
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83 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
84 "gdb.breakpoints".
85
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86 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
87 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
88 available in the CLI.
89
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90 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
91 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
92 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
93 "some_type.items()".
94
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95 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
96 new object file.
97
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98 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
99 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
100 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
101 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
102 any anonymous fields.
103
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104* MI changes
105
106 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
107 "solib-event".
108
109 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
110 "=breakpoint-modified".
111
112 ** New command -ada-task-info.
113
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114* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
115 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
116 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
117 lives.
118
119 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
120 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
121 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
122 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
123 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
124
125 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
126 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
127
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128* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
129 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
130 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
131 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
132 use this option to specify where to find it.
133
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134* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
135 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
136 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
137 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
138 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
139 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
140 section in the user manual for more details.
141
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142* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
143 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
144 become available after that.
145
71eba9c2 146* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 147
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148* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
149 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
150 gcc version 4.7.
151
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152* New commands
153
154!SHELL COMMAND
155 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
156 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
157
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158* Changed commands
159
160watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
161 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
162 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
163
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164info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
165 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
166 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
167
71eba9c2 168info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
169 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
170 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
171 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
172 name starts with a hyphen.
173
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174collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
175 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
176 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
177 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
178 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
179 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
180 number of bytes that will be collected.
181
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182tstart [NOTES]
183 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
184 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
185 setting the variable trace-notes.
186
187tstop [NOTES]
188 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
189 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
190 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
191 trace-stop-notes.
192
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193* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
194 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
195 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
196 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
197 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
198 is running.
199
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200* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
201 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
202 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
203
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204* New options
205
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206set extended-prompt
207show extended-prompt
208 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
209 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
210 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
211 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
212 prompt is displayed.
213
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214set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
215show print entry-values
216 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
217 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
218 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
219
220set debug entry-values
221show debug entry-values
222 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
223 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
224
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225set basenames-may-differ
226show basenames-may-differ
227 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
228 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
229 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
230 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
231 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
232 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
233 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
234 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
235
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236set trace-user
237show trace-user
238set trace-notes
239show trace-notes
240 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
241 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
242 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
243 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
244
245set trace-stop-notes
246show trace-stop-notes
247 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
248 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
249 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
250 started by someone else.
251
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252* New remote packets
253
254QTEnable
255
256 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
257
258QTDisable
259
260 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
261
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262QTNotes
263
264 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
265
266qTP
267
268 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
269
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270qTMinFTPILen
271
272 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
273 be placed.
274
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275* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
276 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
277
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278* New targets
279
280Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
281
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282* New Simulators
283
284Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
285
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286*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
287
288* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
289
d6e00af6 290*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 291
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292* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
293 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
294 matches the given regular expression.
295
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296* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
297
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298* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
299 dumping the instruction opcodes.
300
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301* New command line options
302
303-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
304 This is mostly for testing purposes.
305
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306* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
307 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
308
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309* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
310 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
311 source path list instead of augmenting it.
312
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313* GDB now understands thread names.
314
315 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
316 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
317
318 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
319 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
320
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321* OpenCL C
322 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
323 has been integrated into GDB.
324
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325* Python scripting
326
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327 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
328 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
329 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
330
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331 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
332 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
333 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
334 and allows for more dynamic content.
335
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336 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
337 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
338 have an is_valid method.
339
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340 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
341 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
342 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
343
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344 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
345
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346 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
347 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
348 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
349 that function like so:
350
351 result = some_value (10,20)
352
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353 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
354 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
355 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
356
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357 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
358 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
359 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
360 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
361 New function: register_pretty_printer.
362
363 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
364 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
365
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366 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
367
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368 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
369 selected thread.
370
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371 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
372 holds the thread's name.
373
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374 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
375 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 376 occurring in the process being debugged.
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377 The following events are currently supported:
378 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
379 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
380 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
381
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382* C++ Improvements:
383
384 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
385 instantiation. For example, if you have:
386
387 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
388
389 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
390 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
391 was added to GCC 4.5.
392
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393 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
394 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
395 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
396 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
397 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
398 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
399
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400* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
401 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
402 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
403 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
404 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
405
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406* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
407 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
408 execution to a label.
409
410* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
411 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
412 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
413 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
414
b56df873 415* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 416 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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417 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
418 of scope.
419
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420* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
421
422 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
423 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
424 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
425 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
426 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
427 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
428
429 (gdb) info threads
430 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
431
432 While now you see this:
433
434 (gdb) info threads
435 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
436
437 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
438 dumps.
439
440 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
441 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
442 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
443 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
444
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445* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
446 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
447 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
448 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
449 section in the user manual for more details.
450
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451* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
452
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453 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
454 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 455
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456 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
457
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458* New native configurations
459
460ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
461
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462* New targets:
463
464Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
465
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466* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
467 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
468 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
469 in the GDB user manual.
470
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471* Guile support was removed.
472
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473* New features in the GNU simulator
474
475 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
476
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477 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
478
76b8507d 479*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 480
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481* Shared library support for remote targets by default
482
483 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
484 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
485 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
486 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
487 was always disabled for such configurations.
488
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489* C++ Improvements:
490
491 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
492
493 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
494 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
495 For example:
496 namespace A
497 {
498 class B { };
499 void foo (B) { }
500 }
501 ...
502 A::B b
503 foo(b)
504 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
505 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
506 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
507
508 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
509
510 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
511 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
512 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
513 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
514 entry.
515 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
516 mentioned flavors of operators.
517
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518 ** static const class members
519
520 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
521 class definition has been fixed.
522
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523* Windows Thread Information Block access.
524
525 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
526 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
527 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
528 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
529 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
530 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
531
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532* Static tracepoints
533
534 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
535 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
536 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
537 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
538 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
539 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
540 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
541 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
542 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
543 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
544 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
545 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
546 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
547 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
548 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
549 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
550 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
551 the "New remote packets" section below.
552
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553* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
554
555 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
556 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
557 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
558 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
559
560* Observer mode
561
562 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
563 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
564 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
565 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
566 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
567 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
568 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
569
570* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
571 current thread.
572
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573* New remote packets
574
575qGetTIBAddr
576
577 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
578
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579qRelocInsn
580
581 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
582 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
583 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
584 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
585 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
586 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
587
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588qTfSTM, qTsSTM
589
590 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
591
592qTSTMat
593
594 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
595 program.
596
597qXfer:statictrace:read
598
599 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
600 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
601 to gdb's qSupported query.
602
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603QAllow
604
605 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
606
607QTDPsrc
608
609 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
610 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
611
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612* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
613 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
614 a directory.
615
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616* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
617
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618 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
619 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
620 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
621 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
622
623 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
624 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
625 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
626 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
627 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
628 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
629 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
630
631 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
632 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 633
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634 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
635
c8d5aac9
L
636* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
637 it understands register description.
638
7c953934
TT
639* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
640
8685c86f
L
641* X86 general purpose registers
642
643 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
644 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
645 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
646 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
647 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
648
95a42b64 649* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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PA
650 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
651 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
652 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
653 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
654 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 655
8bd10a10
CM
656* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
657 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
658 in the specified file.
659
ab38a727
PA
660* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
661 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
662 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
663 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
664 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
665 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
666 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
667 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
668 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
669 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
670
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671* New commands
672
f1421989
HZ
673eval template, expressions...
674 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
675 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
676
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PA
677set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
678show target-file-system-kind
679 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
680 names.
681
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PA
682save breakpoints <filename>
683 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
684 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
685 definitions, use the `source' command.
686
687`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
688is now deprecated.
689
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PA
690info static-tracepoint-markers
691 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
692
693strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
694 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
695 function, line, address, or marker ID.
696
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SS
697set observer on|off
698show observer
699 Enable and disable observer mode.
700
701set may-write-registers on|off
702set may-write-memory on|off
703set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
704set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
705set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
706set may-interrupt on|off
707 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
708 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
709 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
710 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
711 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
712 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
713 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
714
715set record memory-query on|off
716show record memory-query
717 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
718 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
719
53a71c06
CR
720* Changed commands
721
722disassemble
723 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
724
f3e9a817
PM
725* Python scripting
726
9279c692
JB
727** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
728 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
729 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
730 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
731 GDB using Python' in the manual.
732
adc36818 733** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
734 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
735 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
736 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 737
fa33c3cd 738** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
739 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
740
741** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
742
743** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 744
967cf477
DE
745** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
746
8a1ea21f
DE
747** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
748 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
749 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
750
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VP
751* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
752there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
753tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
754regular breakpoints.
755
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PA
756* New targets
757
758ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
759
6aecb9c2
JB
760* D language support.
761 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
762 language.
763
431e49aa
TJB
764* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
765 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
766 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
767 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
768 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
769
770* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
771 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
772 conditions of the form:
773
774 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
775
776 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
777 interface mentioned above.
778
bfbf3774 779*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 780
4eef138c
TT
781* C++ Improvements
782
783 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
784
785 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
786 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
787 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
788 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
789 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
790
4eef138c
TT
791 ** Bug Fixes
792
793 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
794 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
795 qualified name.
796
797 ** Cast Operators
798
799 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
800 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
801
2d1c1221
ME
802* New targets
803
804Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 805Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
806
807* New Simulators
808
809Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 810Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 811
6c95b8df
PA
812* Multi-program debugging.
813
814 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
815 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
816 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
817 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
818 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
819 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
820 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
821 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
822
d5551862
SS
823* New tracing features
824
825 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
826
827 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
828
829 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
830 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
831 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
832 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
833 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
834 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
835 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
836 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
837 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
838 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 839
d5551862 840 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
841
842 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
843 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
844 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
845 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
846 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
847 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
848 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
849 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
850 the regular trace command.
851
d5551862
SS
852 ** Disconnected tracing
853
854 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
855 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
856 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
857 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
858 connection is lost unexpectedly.
859
00bf0b85
SS
860 ** Trace files
861
862 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
863 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
864 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
865 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
866 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
867 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
868 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
869
870 ** Circular trace buffer
871
872 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
873 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
874 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
875 not be available for all target agents.
876
21a0512e
PP
877* Changed commands
878
879disassemble
880 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
881 the arguments to be comma-separated.
882
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DJ
883info variables
884 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
885 which only declare a variable are not shown.
886
fb2e7cb4
JB
887source
888 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
889 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
890 support.
891
892 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
893 "set script-extension" (see below).
894
6c95b8df
PA
895* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
896
399cd161
MS
897record save [<FILENAME>]
898 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
899 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
900
901record restore <FILENAME>
902 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
903 earlier time, for replay debugging.
904
6c95b8df
PA
905add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
906 Add a new inferior.
907
908clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
909 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
910 inferior has loaded.
911
912remove-inferior ID
913 Remove an inferior.
914
915maint info program-spaces
916 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
917
9a7071a8
JB
918set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
919show remote interrupt-sequence
920 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
921 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
922 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
923 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
924 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
925
926set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
927show remote interrupt-on-connect
928 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
929 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
930 Linux kernel.
931
932set remotebreak [on | off]
933show remotebreak
934Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
935
f61e138d
SS
936tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
937 Create or modify a trace state variable.
938
939info tvariables
940 List trace state variables and their values.
941
942delete tvariable $NAME ...
943 Delete one or more trace state variables.
944
6da95a67
SS
945teval EXPR, ...
946 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
947 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
948
7a697b8d
SS
949ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
950 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
951
b0f02ee9
JK
952* New expression syntax
953
954 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
955 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
956
6c95b8df
PA
957* New options
958
959set follow-exec-mode new|same
960show follow-exec-mode
961 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
962 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
963 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
964
236f1d4d
SS
965set default-collect EXPR, ...
966show default-collect
967 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
968 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
969 such as registers or a critical global variable.
970
d5551862
SS
971set disconnected-tracing
972show disconnected-tracing
973 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
974 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
975 upon disconnection.
976
4daf5ac0
SS
977set circular-trace-buffer
978show circular-trace-buffer
979 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
980 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
981 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
982 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
983
fb2e7cb4
JB
984set script-extension off|soft|strict
985show script-extension
986 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
987 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
988 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
989 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
990 evaluation failed.
991 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
992
2b71fc8e
JB
993set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
994show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
995 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
996 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
997 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
998 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
999 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1000 is on.
1001
de2e5182
TT
1002* Python API Improvements
1003
1004 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1005 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1006 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1007
1008 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1009 `is_base_class' attribute.
1010
1011 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1012
1013 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1014 evaluate an expression.
1015
f61e138d
SS
1016* New remote packets
1017
1018QTDV
1019 Define a trace state variable.
1020
1021qTV
1022 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1023
d5551862
SS
1024QTDisconnected
1025 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1026
4daf5ac0
SS
1027QTBuffer:circular
1028 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1029
d5551862
SS
1030qTfP, qTsP
1031 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1032
2d483d34
MS
1033* Bug fixes
1034
1035Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1036
6e0e5977
JB
1037Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1038much more reliable. In particular:
1039 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1040 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1041 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1042 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1043 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1044 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1045 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1046 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1047 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1048 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1049 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1050 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1051 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1052 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1053 non-threaded programs.
1054
93c26624
JK
1055PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1056This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1057libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1058executable program.
1059
abc7453d 1060*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1061
4efc6507
DE
1062* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1063dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1064them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1065for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1066"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1067
782b2b07
SS
1068* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1069breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1070or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1071the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1072for tracepoint actions.
1073
53a71c06
CR
1074* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1075raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1076modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1077
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1078* Process record and replay
1079
1080 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1081 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1082 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1083 execute commands.
1084
64644d9b
MS
1085* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1086step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1087set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1088reverse execution.
1089
b9412953
DD
1090* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1091feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
10922.6.28 or later.
1093
6c7a06a3
TT
1094* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1095target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1096char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1097literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1098U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1099`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1100system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1101the installation instructions for more information.
1102
f1838a98
UW
1103* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1104remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1105with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1106the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1107
55333a84
DE
1108* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1109and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1110
7f6a6314
PM
1111* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1112now complete on file names.
1113
65d12d83
TT
1114* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1115completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1116For instance, consider:
1117
1118 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1119 # struct example variable;
1120 (gdb) p variable.
1121
1122If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1123completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1124
edb3359d
DJ
1125* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1126the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1127
2fae03e8
TT
1128* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1129operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1130macros.
1131
47a3467a 1132* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1133the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1134implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1135
1136* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1137registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1138can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1139and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1140
08388c79
DE
1141* New remote packets
1142
1143qSearch:memory:
1144 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1145
a6f3e723
SL
1146QStartNoAckMode
1147 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1148 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1149 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1150
d7713ae0
EZ
1151vKill
1152 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1153 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1154
07e059b5
VP
1155qXfer:osdata:read
1156 Obtains additional operating system information
1157
47a3467a
PA
1158qXfer:siginfo:read
1159qXfer:siginfo:write
1160 Read or write additional signal information.
1161
060871df
PA
1162* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1163
1164 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1165 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1166 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1167
c055b101 1168* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1169DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1170
1171* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1172and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1173`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1174
31fffb02
CS
1175* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1176with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1177
88d8a8e0
JB
1178* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1179
7f99b190
JB
1180* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1181
ccd213ac
DJ
1182* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1183which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1184
1fddbabb 1185* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1186list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1187
a0ef4274
DJ
1188* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1189conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1190have also been fixed.
1191
bfb8797a 1192* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1193From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1194are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1195
71c25dea
TT
1196* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1197example, given:
1198
1199 template<typename T> class C { };
1200 C<char const *> c;
1201
1202GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1203
1204 ptype C<char const *>
1205 ptype C<char const*>
1206 ptype C<const char *>
1207 ptype C<const char*>
1208
ccd213ac
DJ
1209* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1210
1211 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1212 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1213
7ae0e2a2
UW
1214 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1215 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1216 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1217
a6f3e723
SL
1218 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1219 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1220
da8bd9a3
DJ
1221 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1222 gdbserver.
1223
d70e31dd
DE
1224 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1225 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1226
1227 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1228 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1229 as appropriate.
1230
d57a3c85
TJB
1231* Python scripting
1232
1233 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1234 available is determined at configure time.
1235
d8906c6f
TJB
1236 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1237
aadc346a
JB
1238* Ada tasking support
1239
1240 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1241 been introduced:
1242
1243 info tasks
1244 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1245 info task N
1246 Print detailed information about task number N.
1247 task
1248 Print the task number of the current task.
1249 task N
1250 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1251
adb483fe
DJ
1252* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1253add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1254
2277426b
PA
1255* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1256
1257 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1258 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1259 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1260 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1261 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1262 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1263 below.
1264
08d16641
PA
1265* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1266"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1267information.
1268
e35359c5
UW
1269* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1270to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1271architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1272See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1273more information.
1274
85e747d2
UW
1275* Multi-architecture debugging.
1276
1277 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1278 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1279 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1280 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1281 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1282
1283* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1284use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1285Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1286powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1287--enable-targets configure option.
1288
11ade57a
PA
1289* Non-stop mode debugging.
1290
1291 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1292 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1293 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1294 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1295 section in the user manual for more information.
1296
1297 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1298 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1299 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1300 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1301 extensions on linux targets.
1302
d7713ae0 1303* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1304
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1305catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1306 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1307 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1308 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1309 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1310 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1311 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1312 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1313 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1314
08388c79
DE
1315find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1316 val1 [, val2, ...]
1317 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1318
d57a3c85
TJB
1319maint set python print-stack
1320maint show python print-stack
1321 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1322
1323python [CODE]
1324 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1325
d7713ae0
EZ
1326macro define
1327macro list
1328macro undef
1329 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1330 interactively.
1331
1332info os processes
1333 Show operating system information about processes.
1334
2277426b
PA
1335info inferiors
1336 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1337
1338inferior NUM
1339 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1340
1341detach inferior NUM
1342 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1343
1344kill inferior NUM
1345 Kill inferior number NUM.
1346
d7713ae0
EZ
1347* New options
1348
3285f3fe
UW
1349set spu stop-on-load
1350show spu stop-on-load
1351 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1352
ff1a52c6
UW
1353set spu auto-flush-cache
1354show spu auto-flush-cache
1355 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1356 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1357
d7713ae0
EZ
1358set sh calling-convention
1359show sh calling-convention
1360 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1361
e0a3ce09 1362set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1363show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1364 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1365
1366set disassemble-next-line
1367show disassemble-next-line
1368 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1369 the debuggee stops.
1370
1371set remote noack-packet
1372show remote noack-packet
1373 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1374 under "New remote packets."
1375
1376set remote query-attached-packet
1377show remote query-attached-packet
1378 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1379
1380set remote read-siginfo-object
1381show remote read-siginfo-object
1382 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1383 packet.
1384
1385set remote write-siginfo-object
1386show remote write-siginfo-object
1387 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1388 packet.
1389
40ab02ce
MS
1390set remote reverse-continue
1391show remote reverse-continue
1392 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1393
1394set remote reverse-step
1395show remote reverse-step
1396 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1397
d7713ae0
EZ
1398set displaced-stepping
1399show displaced-stepping
1400 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1401 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1402 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1403
1404set debug displaced
1405show debug displaced
1406 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1407
1408maint set internal-error
1409maint show internal-error
1410 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1411
1412maint set internal-warning
1413maint show internal-warning
1414 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1415
ccd213ac
DJ
1416set exec-wrapper
1417show exec-wrapper
1418unset exec-wrapper
1419 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1420
aad4b048
JB
1421set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1422show multiple-symbols
1423 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1424 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1425 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1426
74960c60
VP
1427set breakpoint always-inserted
1428show breakpoint always-inserted
1429 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1430 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1431 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1432
0428b8f5
DJ
1433set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1434show arm fallback-mode
1435set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1436show arm force-mode
1437 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1438 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1439 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1440 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1441
10568435
JK
1442set disable-randomization
1443show disable-randomization
1444 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1445 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1446 multiple debugging sessions.
1447
d7713ae0
EZ
1448set non-stop
1449show non-stop
1450 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1451 a breakpoint.
1452
b3eb342c 1453set target-async
d7713ae0 1454show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1455 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1456 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1457 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1458 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1459
6c7a06a3
TT
1460set target-wide-charset
1461show target-wide-charset
1462 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1463 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1464
84603566
SL
1465set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1466show tcp auto-retry
1467set tcp connect-timeout
1468show tcp connect-timeout
1469 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1470 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1471 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1472
17a37d48
PP
1473set libthread-db-search-path
1474show libthread-db-search-path
1475 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1476 libthread_db.
1477
d4db2f36
PA
1478set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1479show schedule-multiple
1480 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1481 the current process.
1482
4e5d721f
DE
1483set stack-cache
1484show stack-cache
1485 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1486 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1487 affecting correctness.
1488
910c5da8
JB
1489set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1490show interactive-mode
1491 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1492 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1493 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1494 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1495 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1496
2277426b
PA
1497* Removed commands
1498
1499info forks
1500 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1501 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1502 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1503 command.
1504
1505fork NUM
1506 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1507 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1508 alias for the `fork' command.
1509
1510process PID
1511 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1512 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1513 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1514
1515delete fork NUM
1516 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1517 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1518 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1519 fork' command.
1520
1521detach fork NUM
1522 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1523 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1524 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1525 fork' command.
1526
a80b95ba
TG
1527* New native configurations
1528
1529x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1530
b8bfd3ed
JB
1531x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1532
75a2d5e7
TT
1533* New targets
1534
c28c63d8 1535Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1536x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1537x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1538S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1539
6de3146c
PA
1540* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1541 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1542
d5cbbe6e
JB
1543* Removed commands
1544
1545catch load
1546catch unload
1547 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1548
75feb17d 1549*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1550
af5ca30d
NH
1551* New native configurations
1552
1553NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1554Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1555
1556* New targets
1557
1558NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1559Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1560
7a404eba
PA
1561* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1562
1563 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1564 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1565 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1566 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1567
430ebac9
PA
1568* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1569(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1570
fe6fbf8b 1571* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1572is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1573
1574* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1575including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1576and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1577
10665d76
JB
1578* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1579accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1580more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1581
7cc46491
DJ
1582* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1583
d71340b8
DJ
1584* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1585registers on PowerPC targets.
1586
523c4513
DJ
1587* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1588targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1589
a6b151f1
DJ
1590* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1591commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1592
2d717e4f
DJ
1593* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1594extended-remote mode.
1595
24a836bd 1596* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1597The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1598error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1599The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1600
d0c678e6
UW
1601* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1602building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1603target architectures.
1604
d64a946d
TJB
1605* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1606Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1607now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1608stored in two consecutive float registers.
1609
ee163bf5
VP
1610* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1611breakpoints now.
1612
b93b6ca7 1613* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1614Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1615include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1616 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1617 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1618 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1619 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1620 of an assignment
1621 - Improved command completion in Ada
1622 - Several bug fixes
1623
d001be7a
DJ
1624* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1625process.
1626
a6b151f1
DJ
1627* New commands
1628
6d53d0af
JB
1629set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1630show print frame-arguments
1631 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1632 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1633
a6b151f1
DJ
1634remote put
1635remote get
1636remote delete
1637 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1638
1639* New MI commands
1640
1641-target-file-put
1642-target-file-get
1643-target-file-delete
1644 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1645
1646* New remote packets
1647
1648vFile:open:
1649vFile:close:
1650vFile:pread:
1651vFile:pwrite:
1652vFile:unlink:
1653 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1654
2d717e4f
DJ
1655vAttach
1656 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1657 mode.
1658
1659vRun
1660 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1661
8d5f9c6f 1662*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1663
19d378fc
MS
1664* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1665bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1666Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1667
3a40aaa0
UW
1668* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1669symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1670-Bsymbolic linker option.
1671
a6ec25f2
BW
1672* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1673recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1674is not supported.
1675
6dd09645
JB
1676* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1677frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1678
c9bb8148
DJ
1679* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
168032-bit or 64-bit register values.
1681
0d5de010
DJ
1682* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1683
23181151
DJ
1684* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1685target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1686a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1687
ea37ba09
DJ
1688* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1689automatically displayed as character or string data.
1690
1691* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1692arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1693as strings.
e1f48ead 1694
123dc839
DJ
1695* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1696for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1697only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1698
05a4558a
DJ
1699* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1700iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1701
7c963485
PA
1702* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1703ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1704has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1705
b18be20d
DJ
1706* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1707
0ca420ce
UW
1708* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1709
31d99776
DJ
1710* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1711layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1712segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1713
a4642986
MR
1714* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1715immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1716
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1717* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1718"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1719packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1720where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1721Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1722
1723* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1724(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1725
1726* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1727according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1728
c9bb8148
DJ
1729* New commands
1730
23776285
MR
1731set remoteflow
1732show remoteflow
1733 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1734 when debugging using remote targets.
1735
c9bb8148
DJ
1736set mem inaccessible-by-default
1737show mem inaccessible-by-default
1738 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1739 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1740 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1741 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1742 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1743
1744set breakpoint auto-hw
1745show breakpoint auto-hw
1746 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1747 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1748 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1749 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1750 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1751 including "next" and "finish".
1752
0e420bd8
JB
1753catch exception
1754catch exception unhandled
1755 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1756
1757catch assert
1758 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1759
f822c95b
DJ
1760set sysroot
1761show sysroot
1762 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1763 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1764 an alias to "set sysroot".
1765
83cc5c53
UW
1766info spu
1767 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1768 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1769 architecture.
1770
bd372731
MK
1771* New native configurations
1772
1773OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1774
23181151
DJ
1775set tdesc filename
1776unset tdesc filename
1777show tdesc filename
1778 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1779 not query the target for its built-in description.
1780
c9bb8148
DJ
1781* New targets
1782
54fe9172 1783OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1784MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1785Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1786
6dd09645
JB
1787* New remote packets
1788
1789QPassSignals:
1790 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1791 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1792
23181151
DJ
1793qXfer:features:read:
1794 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1795 features.
6dd09645 1796
83cc5c53
UW
1797qXfer:spu:read:
1798qXfer:spu:write:
1799 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1800 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1801
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1802qXfer:libraries:read:
1803 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1804 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1805 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1806 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1807
483367ee
DJ
1808* Removed targets
1809
1810Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1811
d08950c4
UW
1812alpha*-*-osf1*
1813alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1814d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1815hppa*-*-hiux*
1816i[34567]86-ncr-*
1817i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1818i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1819i[34567]86-*-netware*
1820i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1821i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1822i[34567]86-*-sco*
1823i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1824i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1825i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1826i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1827i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1828i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1829i[34567]86-*-isc*
1830m68*-cisco*-*
1831m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1832mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1833rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1834sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1835
7ce59000
DJ
1836* Other removed features
1837
1838target abug
1839target cpu32bug
1840target est
1841target rom68k
1842
1843 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1844
ea35711c
DJ
1845target hms
1846target e7000
1847target sh3
1848target sh3e
1849
1850 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1851 H8/300.
1852
1853target ocd
1854
1855 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1856 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1857 interfaces.
1858
7ce59000
DJ
1859DWARF 1 support
1860
1861 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1862 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1863
54d61198
DJ
1864Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1865
1866 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1867 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1868 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1869 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1870
ea35711c
DJ
1871MIPS ".pdr" sections
1872
1873 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1874 in debugging information.
1875
1876Scheme support
1877
1878 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1879 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1880
1a69e1e4
DJ
1881set mips stack-arg-size
1882set mips saved-gpreg-size
1883
1884 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1885
6dd09645 1886*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1887
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1888* New targets
1889
1890Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1891Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1892
6aec2e11
DJ
1893* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1894(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1895running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1896
1897* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1898Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1899supported.
1900
17218d91
DJ
1901* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1902broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1903
9ebce043
DJ
1904* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1905stub provides the required support.
1906
7d3d3ece
DJ
1907* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1908longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1909
4f8253f3
JB
1910* New commands
1911
1912set substitute-path
1913unset substitute-path
1914show substitute-path
1915 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1916 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1917 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1918 between compilation and debugging.
1919
9fa66fd7
AS
1920set trace-commands
1921show trace-commands
1922 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1923 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1924 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1925
1f5befc1
DJ
1926* REMOVED features
1927
1928The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1929
2ec3381a
DJ
1930Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1931an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1932
3d00d119
DJ
1933The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1934
be2a5f71
DJ
1935* New remote packets
1936
1937qSupported:
1938 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1939 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1940 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1941 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1942 target.
1943
0876f84a
DJ
1944qXfer:auxv:read:
1945 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1946 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1947
9ebce043
DJ
1948qXfer:memory-map:read:
1949 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1950 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1951
1952vFlashErase:
1953vFlashWrite:
1954vFlashDone:
1955 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1956
0876f84a
DJ
1957* Removed remote packets
1958
1959qPart:auxv:read:
1960 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1961 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1962
e374b601 1963*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1964
96309189
MS
1965* New targets
1966
1967Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1968
1969Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1970
53e5f3cf
AS
1971* New commands
1972
1973init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1974 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1975
ac264b3b
MS
1976The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1977
1978checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1979
1980restart <n> Return the program state to a
1981 previously saved state.
1982
1983info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1984
1985delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1986
1987set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1988 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1989
1990info forks List forks of the user program that
1991 are available to be debugged.
1992
1993fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1994 forks of the user program that are
1995 available to be debugged.
1996
1997delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1998 that are available to be debugged (and
1999 kill the forked process).
2000
2001detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2002 that are available to be debugged (and
2003 allow the process to continue).
2004
3950dc3f
NS
2005* New architecture
2006
2007Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2008
0ea3f30e
DJ
2009* Improved Windows host support
2010
2011GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2012native console support, and remote communications using either
2013network sockets or serial ports.
2014
f79daebb
GM
2015* Improved Modula-2 language support
2016
2017GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2018basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2019pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2020printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2021written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2022GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2023
acab6ab2
MM
2024* REMOVED features
2025
2026The ARM rdi-share module.
2027
f4267320
DJ
2028The Netware NLM debug server.
2029
53e5f3cf 2030*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2031
e0ecbda1
MK
2032* New native configurations
2033
02a677ac 2034OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2035OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2036
d64a6579
KB
2037* New targets
2038
2039Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2040
b33a6190
AS
2041* New command line options
2042
2043--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2044--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2045 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2046--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2047 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2048 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2049 with the --command (-x) option.
2050
11dced61
AC
2051* Deprecated commands removed
2052
2053The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2054removed:
2055
2056 Command Replacement
2057 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2058 othernames set arm disassembler
2059 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2060 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2061 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2062 regs info registers
2063
6fe85783
MK
2064* New BSD user-level threads support
2065
2066It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2067library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2068configurations are:
2069
2070FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2071FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2072OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2073
2074Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2075are not yet supported.
2076
5260ca71
MS
2077* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2078(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2079
e84ecc99
AC
2080* REMOVED configurations and files
2081
2082VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2083Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2084National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2085
31e35378
JB
2086* New "set print array-indexes" command
2087
2088After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2089when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2090behavior.
2091
e85e5c83
MK
2092* VAX floating point support
2093
2094GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2095
d91e9901
AS
2096* User-defined command support
2097
2098In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2099to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2100section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2101
f2cb65ca
MC
2102*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2103
f47b1503
AS
2104* New command line option
2105
2106GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2107debugging.
2108
f2cb65ca
MC
2109* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2110
2111GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2112information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2113by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2114proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2115to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2116
d08c0230
AC
2117* Internationalization
2118
2119When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2120internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2121continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2122
117ea3cf
PH
2123* Ada
2124
2125Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2126implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2127into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2128
d08c0230
AC
2129* New native configurations
2130
2131GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2132
2133* Remote 'p' packet
2134
2135GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2136packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2137
2138* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2139
2140GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2141The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2142features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2143i386 application).
2144
2145GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2146compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2147continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2148configurations:
2149
2150hppa-*-hpux
2151ia64-*-aix
2152mips-*-irix*
2153*-*-lynx
2154mips-*-linux-gnu
2155sds protocol
2156xdr protocol
2157powerpc bdm protocol
2158
2159Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2160made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2161
2162* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2163
2164Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2165been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2166configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2167permanently REMOVED.
2168
2169h8300-*-*
2170mcore-*-*
2171mn10300-*-*
2172ns32k-*-*
2173sh64-*-*
2174v850-*-*
2175
ebb7c577
AC
2176*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2177
2178* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2179
2180When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2181heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2182been fixed.
2183
2184* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2185
2186When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2187fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2188IRIX long double values).
2189
2190* VAX and "next"
2191
2192A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2193command. This problem has been fixed.
2194
860660cb 2195*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2196
0dea2468
AC
2197* Fix for ``many threads''
2198
2199On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2200rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2201error message:
2202
2203 ptrace: No such process.
2204 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2205
2206This problem has been fixed.
2207
2c07db7a
AC
2208* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2209
2210Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2211GDB to dump core).
2212
c23968a2
JB
2213* New ``start'' command.
2214
2215This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2216
71009278
MK
2217* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2218
2219Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2220live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2221platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2222
2223FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2224FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2225NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2226NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2227NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2228OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2229OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2230OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2231OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2232
3c0b7db2
AC
2233* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2234
2235Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2236These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2237of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2238call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2239signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2240
73cc75f3
AC
2241Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2242features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2243include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2244
7243600a
BF
2245* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2246
6f606e1c
MK
2247* New native configurations
2248
97dc871c 2249GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2250OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2251OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2252OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2253OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2254NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2255OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2256
a1b461bf
AC
2257* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2258
2259GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2260The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2261including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2262migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2263compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2264work, was also included.
2265
2266GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2267module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2268
2269h8300-*-*
2270mcore-*-*
2271mn10300-*-*
2272ns32k-*-*
2273sh64-*-*
2274v850-*-*
2275xstormy16-*-*
2276
2277Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2278made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2279
3c7012f5
AC
2280* REMOVED configurations and files
2281
2282Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2283Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2284Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2285Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2286Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2287AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2288Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2289decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2290riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2291sonymips mips-sony-*
2292sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2293
e5fe55f7
AC
2294*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2295
2296* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2297
2298The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2299GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2300command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2301program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2302with GDB".
2303
2304* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2305
2306Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2307libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2308cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2309GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2310shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2311the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2312are created.
2313
2314Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2315
2316* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2317
2318The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2319non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2320compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2321
2322* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2323
2324Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2325wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2326
2327* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2328
2329The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2330permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2331systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2332
2333* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2334
2335Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2336has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2337
2338* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2339
2340GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2341its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2342panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2343
2344* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2345
2346When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2347by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2348not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2349
faae5abe 2350*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2351
9175c9a3
MC
2352* Removed --with-mmalloc
2353
2354Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2355conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2356
3cc87ec0
MK
2357* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2358
2359The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2360the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2361and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2362you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2363
f0424ef6
MK
2364* Revised SPARC target
2365
2366The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2367FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2368support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2369from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2370(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2371
59659be2
ILT
2372* New C++ demangler
2373
2374GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2375names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2376with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2377programs.
2378
9e08b29b
DJ
2379* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2380
2381GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2382arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2383encountered these.
2384
8dfe8985
DC
2385* C++ nested types and namespaces
2386
2387GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2388improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2389is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2390Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2391namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2392"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2393frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2394if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2395GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2396
cced5e27
MK
2397* New native configurations
2398
2399NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2400OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2401OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2402OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2403OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2404
b4b4b794
KI
2405* New debugging protocols
2406
2407M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2408
7989c619
AC
2409* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2410
2411The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2412and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2413tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2414
5994185b
AC
2415* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2416
2417Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2418been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2419configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2420permanently REMOVED.
2421
2422Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2423Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2424Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2425Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2426Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2427AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2428Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2429decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2430riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2431sonymips mips-sony-*
2432sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2433
0ddabb4c
AC
2434* REMOVED configurations and files
2435
2436SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2437SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2438Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2439Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2440H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2441HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2442HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2443HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2444PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2445386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2446Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2447 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2448 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2449SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2450SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2451Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2452Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2453
c7f1390e
DJ
2454*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2455
1fe43d45
AC
2456* Objective-C
2457
2458Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2459integrated into GDB.
2460
e6beb428
AC
2461* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2462
2463DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2464information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2465By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2466backtraces.
2467
2468The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2469have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2470DWARF 2 CFI support.
2471
2472* Hosted file I/O.
2473
2474GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2475file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2476remote protocol documentation for details.
2477
2478* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2479
2480All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2481architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2482to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2483ppc32 on ppc64).
2484
2485* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2486
2487GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2488per-thread variables.
2489
2490* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2491
2492GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2493GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2494
2495* Separate debug info.
2496
2497GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2498automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2499of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2500system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2501and optional debug files.
2502
2503* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2504
2505DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2506describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2507debugger.
2508
2509GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2510for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2511
2512* Java
2513
2514A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2515Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2516considered "useable".
2517
85f8f974
DJ
2518* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2519
2520The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2521commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2522kernel.
2523
0fac0b41
DJ
2524* GDB supports logging output to a file
2525
2526There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2527used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2528
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2529* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2530
2531The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2532disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2533command.
2534
e286caf2 2535* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2536
2537The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2538registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2539
d28f9cdf
DJ
2540* Profiling support
2541
2542A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2543be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2544session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2545"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2546data, for more informative profiling results.
2547
da0f9dcd
AC
2548* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2549
2550The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2551option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2552"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2553
2554Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2555removed.
2556
fb9b6b35
JJ
2557Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2558Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2559Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2560 in a subsequent -var-update.
2561
954a4db8
MK
2562* New native configurations.
2563
2564FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2565
6760f9e6
JB
2566* Multi-arched targets.
2567
b4263afa 2568HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2569Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2570
1b831c93
AC
2571* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2572
2573Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2574been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2575configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2576permanently REMOVED.
2577
8b0e5691 2578Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2579Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2580H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2581HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2582HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2583HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2584PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2585Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2586 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2587 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2588Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2589Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2590
5835abe7
NC
2591* REMOVED configurations and files
2592
2593V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2594Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2595IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2596i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2597i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2598i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2599HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2600 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2601 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2602Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2603Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2604Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2605OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2606I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2607
a094c6fb
AC
2608* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2609
2610The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2611the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2612context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2613address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2614The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2615
299ffc64 2616*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2617
46248966
AC
2618* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2619
2620When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2621`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2622in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2623library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2624shared libs like mad''.
2625
b9d14705 2626* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2627
b9d14705
DJ
2628Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2629the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2630arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2631powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2632
e0e9281e
JB
2633* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2634
2635GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2636and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2637they expand.
2638
dd73b9bb
AC
2639The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2640invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2641
2642The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2643macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2644
e0e9281e
JB
2645Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2646information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2647your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2648information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2649
2250ee0c
CV
2650* Multi-arched targets.
2651
6e3ba3b8
JT
2652DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2653DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2654NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2655National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2656Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2657Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2658
cd9bfe15 2659* New targets.
e33ce519 2660
456f8b9d
DB
2661Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2662
e33ce519 2663
da8ca43d
JT
2664* New native configurations
2665
2666Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2667SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2668MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2669UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2670
cd9bfe15
AC
2671* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2672
2673Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2674been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2675configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2676permanently REMOVED.
2677
92eb23c5 2678Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2679OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2680IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2681Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2682Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2683Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2684i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2685i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2686i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2687HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2688 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2689 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2690I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2691
db034ac5
AC
2692* OBSOLETE languages
2693
2694CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2695
cd9bfe15
AC
2696* REMOVED configurations and files
2697
2698AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2699A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2700AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2701AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2702AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2703
2704testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2705
20f01a46
DH
2706* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2707
2708This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2709commands. The default is 1024.
2710
a5941fbf
MK
2711* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2712
2713Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2714
89743e04
MS
2715* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2716
2717These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2718to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2719from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2720
9fb14e79
JB
2721* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2722
2723The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2724including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2725of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2726
2037aebb
AC
2727*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2728
2729* New targets.
2730
2731Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2732
2733* Bug fixes
2734
2735gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2736mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2737Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2738
2739gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2740dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2741Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2742
2743Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2744Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2745By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2746
2747i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2748avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2749By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2750
37057839 2751*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2752
1a703748
MS
2753* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2754
2755This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2756really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2757In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2758target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2759This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2760(notably embedded) targets.
2761
cefd4ef5
MS
2762* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2763
55241689
AC
2764This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2765process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2766GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2767hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2768
352ed7b4
MS
2769* New command line option
2770
2771GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2772
2773* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2774
2775There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2776command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2777a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2778be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2779open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2780issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2781a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2782it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2783GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2784is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2785
fe419ffc
RE
2786* Changes in ARM configurations.
2787
2788Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2789configuration is fully multi-arch.
2790
eb7cedd9
MK
2791* New native configurations
2792
fe419ffc 2793ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2794x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2795AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2796Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2797
c9f63e6b
CV
2798* New targets
2799
2800Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2801
9b4ff276
AC
2802* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2803
2804Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2805been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2806configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2807permanently REMOVED.
2808
2809AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2810A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2811AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2812AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2813AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2814
b4ceaee6 2815testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2816
e2caac18
AC
2817* REMOVED configurations and files
2818
2819TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2820WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2821PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2822PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2823PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2824Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2825Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2826 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2827SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2828Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2829Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2830ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2831Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2832
c2a727fa
TT
2833* Changes to command line processing
2834
2835The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2836for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2837
467d8519
TT
2838* Changes to key bindings
2839
2840There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2841
7072a954
AC
2842*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2843
2844Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2845
2846Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2847corrupted.
2848
2849Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2850
2851Numerous documentation fixes.
2852
2853Numerous testsuite fixes.
2854
34f47bc4 2855*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2856
2857* New native configurations
2858
2859Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2860x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2861MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2862MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2863ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2864s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2865
bf64bfd6
AC
2866* New targets
2867
def90278 2868Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2869CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2870UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2871
17e78a56 2872* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2873
2874x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2875Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2876Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2877 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2878TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2879WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2880Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2881PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2882PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2883PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2884SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2885Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2886ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2887Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2888
17e78a56
AC
2889stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2890kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2891
7fcca85b
AC
2892Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2893been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2894configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2895permanently REMOVED.
2896
a196c81c 2897* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2898
2899Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2900Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2901Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2902ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2903Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2904ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2905
6d6b80e5 2906* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2907
6d6b80e5 2908GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2909sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2910present.
2911
bf64bfd6
AC
2912* Other news:
2913
e23194cb
EZ
2914* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2915
2916* The MI enabled by default.
2917
2918The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2919revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2920engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2921using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2922which is now deprecated.
2923
2924* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2925
2926GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2927main features are supported:
2928
2929 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2930
2931 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2932 extension;
2933
2934 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2935
2936 - a Pascal expression parser.
2937
2938However, some important features are not yet supported.
2939
2940 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2941
2942 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2943
2944 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2945 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2946
2947 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2948
2949 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2950
2951* Changes in completion.
2952
2953Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2954to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2955users expect at the shell prompt.
2956
2957Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2958`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2959program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2960files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2961be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2962considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2963name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2964
2965`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2966
2967* New platform-independent commands:
2968
2969It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2970hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2971documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2972
2973* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2974
d7275149
MK
2975Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2976revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2977many threads as your system allows you to have.
2978
e23194cb
EZ
2979Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2980
d7275149
MK
2981Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2982multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2983
2984* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2985
2986Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2987
e23194cb
EZ
2988GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2989debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2990supported.)
2991
2992* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2993
2994Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2995breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2996implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2997put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2998and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2999registers.
3000
3001The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3002debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3003watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3004
3005* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3006
3007New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3008the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3009
3010New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3011display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3012IDT.
3013
3014New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3015from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3016New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3017a given linear address.
3018
3019GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3020program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3021which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3022
3023DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3024
6c56c069
EZ
3025It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3026
e23194cb
EZ
3027* Changes in documentation.
3028
3029All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3030Documentation License.
3031
3032Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3033manual.
3034
3035TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3036
3037Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3038manual.
3039
3040The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3041documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3042hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3043
5d6640b1
AC
3044* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3045
3046The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3047``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3048contents of this file.
3049
1a1d8446
AC
3050* gdba.el deleted
3051
3052GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3053
9debab2f 3054*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3055
c63ce875
EZ
3056* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3057
3058Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3059programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3060displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3061greater level of detail.
3062
3063* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3064
3065It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3066bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3067on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3068written.
3069
3070* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3071
3072The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3073necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3074machines ``out of the box''.
3075
3076The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3077possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3078signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3079would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3080interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3081
3082It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3083standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3084even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3085and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3086terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3087
3088The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3089enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3090also works.
3091
3092DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3093GDB.
3094
3095It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3096directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3097times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3098breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3099
ed9a39eb
JM
3100* New native configurations
3101
3102ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3103PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3104
7a292a7a
SS
3105* New targets
3106
96baa820 3107Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3108x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3109PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3110TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3111
085dd6e6
JM
3112* OBSOLETE configurations
3113
3114Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3115Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3116Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3117ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3118Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3119
9debab2f
AC
3120Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3121but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3122these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3123be permanently REMOVED.
3124
5330533d
SS
3125* Gould support removed
3126
3127Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3128
bc9e5bbf
AC
3129* New features for SVR4
3130
3131On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3132without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3133load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3134
3135* Many C++ enhancements
3136
3137C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3138in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3139
adf40b2e
JM
3140* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3141
3142A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3143sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3144with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3145``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3146
3147 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3148 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3149
43e526b9
JM
3150* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3151
3152A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3153expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3154instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3155
3156The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3157added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3158
96baa820
JM
3159* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3160
3161The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3162``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3163include ``set remote P-packet''.
3164
11cf8741
JM
3165* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3166
3167The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3168accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3169``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3170
7876dd43
DB
3171* ``apropos'' command added.
3172
3173The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3174documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3175try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3176
bc9e5bbf
AC
3177* New MI interface
3178
3179A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3180interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3181process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3182"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3183enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3184
3185 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3186
c906108c
SS
3187*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3188
3189* New native configurations
3190
3191HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3192HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3193M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3194
3195* New targets
3196
3197Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3198Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3199Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3200
3201* OBSOLETE configurations
3202
3203Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3204
3205Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3206but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3207these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3208be permanently REMOVED.
3209
3210* ANSI/ISO C
3211
3212As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3213buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3214containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3215use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3216available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3217configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3218information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3219already.
3220
3221* Readline 2.2
3222
3223GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3224
3225* set extension-language
3226
3227You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3228languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3229you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3230 set extension-language .c c++
3231The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3232and their associated languages.
3233
3234* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3235
3236When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3237you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3238PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3239
3240 set processor NAME
3241
3242sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3243following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3244
3245 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3246 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3247 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3248 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3249 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3250 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3251 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3252 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3253 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3254 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3255 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3256
3257At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3258special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3259registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3260only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3261
3262* HP-UX support
3263
3264Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3265more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3266library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3267support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3268for xdb and dbx commands.
3269
3270* Catchpoints
3271
3272HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3273generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3274to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3275
3276This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3277argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3278output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3279
3280* Debugging across forks
3281
3282On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3283in the inferior.
3284
3285* TUI
3286
3287HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3288it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3289configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3290
3291* GDB remote protocol additions
3292
3293A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3294Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3295fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3296allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3297
3298For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3299full 64-bit address. The command
3300
3301 set remoteaddresssize 32
3302
3303can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3304the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3305will be discarded.
3306
3307In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3308command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3309
3310 maint packet heythere
3311
3312sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3313disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3314time.
3315
3316The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3317target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3318downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3319
3320* Tracing can collect general expressions
3321
3322You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3323further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3324doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3325
3326* mask-address variable for Mips
3327
3328For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3329a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3330of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3331
3332* Higher serial baud rates
3333
3334GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3335230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3336to achieve all of these rates.)
3337
3338* i960 simulator
3339
3340The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3341builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3342
3343
3344*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3345
3346* New native configurations
3347
3348Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3349Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3350Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3351PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3352PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3353Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3354Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3355
3356* New targets
3357
3358Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3359Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3360Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3361Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3362MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3363MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3364MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3365Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3366Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3367Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3368NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3369
3370* New debugging protocols
3371
3372ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3373M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3374DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3375PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3376PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3377Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3378
3379* DWARF 2
3380
3381All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3382format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3383information.
3384
3385* Java frontend
3386
3387GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3388only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3389
3390* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3391
3392For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3393loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3394locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3395
3396* Live range splitting
3397
3398GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3399range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3400more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3401
3402* Hurd support
3403
3404GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3405updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3406
3407* ARM Thumb support
3408
3409GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3410instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3411instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3412accordingly.
3413
3414* MIPS16 support
3415
3416GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3417instruction set.
3418
3419* Overlay support
3420
3421GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3422linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3423will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3424control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3425additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3426in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3427
3428* info symbol
3429
3430The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3431the symbol at the specified address.
3432
3433* Trace support
3434
3435The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3436asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3437extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3438includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3439file tracepoint.c for more details.
3440
3441* MIPS simulator
3442
3443Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3444by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3445of most MIPS variants.
3446
3447* Sparc simulator
3448
3449Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3450by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3451Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3452
3453* set architecture
3454
3455For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3456basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3457architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3458the possible architectures.
3459
3460*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3461
3462* New native configurations
3463
3464Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3465M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3466PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3467PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3468PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3469RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3470
3471* New targets
3472
3473ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3474I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3475MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3476MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3477PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3478Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3479Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3480
3481* PowerPC simulator
3482
3483The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3484contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3485PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3486basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3487performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3488
3489* Solaris 2.5
3490
3491GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3492
3493* Windows 95/NT native
3494
3495GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3496To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3497which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3498Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3499ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3500
3501* dont-repeat command
3502
3503If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3504command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3505useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3506extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3507
3508* Send break instead of ^C
3509
3510The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3511rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3512GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3513
3514* Remote protocol timeout
3515
3516The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3517that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3518to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3519
3520* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3521
3522By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3523loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3524stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3525when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3526in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3527
3528Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3529/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3530automatically on hpux10.
3531
3532* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3533
3534Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3535
3536* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3537
3538When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3539may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3540the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3541every character. The default value is 1050.
3542
3543* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3544
3545If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3546a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3547replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3548details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3549remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3550to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3551
3552* Speedups for remote debugging
3553
3554GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3555the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3556and more efficient S-record downloading.
3557
3558* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3559
3560GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3561Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3562
3563*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3564
3565* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3566
3567The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3568can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3569
3570* Remote targets use caching
3571
3572Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3573remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3574it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3575debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3576off' turns the the data cache off.
3577
3578* Remote targets may have threads
3579
3580The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3581in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3582gdb/remote.c for details.
3583
3584* NetROM support
3585
3586If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3587support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3588acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3589write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3590support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3591another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3592sequence is something like
3593
3594 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3595 load <prog>
3596 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3597
3598* Macintosh host
3599
3600GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3601may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3602it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3603available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3604device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3605directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3606scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3607mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3608
3609* Autoconf
3610
3611GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3612but does simplify configuration and building.
3613
3614* hpux10
3615
3616GDB now supports hpux10.
3617
3618*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3619
3620* New native configurations
3621
3622x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3623x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3624NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3625Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3626
3627* New targets
3628
3629A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3630HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3631CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3632PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3633WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3634
3635* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3636
3637GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3638possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3639filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3640the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3641if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3642
3643* Arguments to user-defined commands
3644
3645User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3646Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3647trivial example:
3648define adder
3649 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3650
3651To execute the command use:
3652adder 1 2 3
3653
3654Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3655Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3656use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3657
3658* New `if' and `while' commands
3659
3660This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3661commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3662expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3663execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3664terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3665`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3666if the expression is zero.
3667
3668* Fortran source language mode
3669
3670GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3671Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3672variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3673with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3674Fortran compilers.
3675
3676* Better HPUX support
3677
3678Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3679running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3680processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3681for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3682that behavior do the following before running the program:
3683
3684 adb -w a.out
3685 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3686 control-d
3687
3688This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3689To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3690
3691 adb -w a.out
3692 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3693 control-d
3694
3695You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3696the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3697external linkage.
3698
3699GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3700HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3701
3702* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3703
3704You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3705commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3706current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3707"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3708associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3709configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3710
3711* New DOS host serial code
3712
3713This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3714no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3715a PC's serial port.
3716
3717*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3718
3719* New "complete" command
3720
3721This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3722were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3723
3724* Trailing space optional in prompt
3725
3726"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3727allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3728
3729* Breakpoint hit counts
3730
3731"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3732has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3733can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3734to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3735less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3736that breakpoint.
3737
3738* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3739
3740"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3741an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3742arrays actually contain only short strings.
3743
3744* Shared library breakpoints
3745
3746In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3747breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3748
3749* Hardware watchpoints
3750
3751There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3752targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3753
55241689 3754Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3755
3756* Annotations
3757
3758Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3759and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3760
3761* Improved Irix 5 support
3762
3763GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3764
3765* Improved HPPA support
3766
3767GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3768
3769* New native configurations
3770
3771Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3772HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3773Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3774RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3775
3776* New targets
3777
3778OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3779MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3780Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3781
3782* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3783
3784There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3785This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3786
3787* Fixes
3788
3789As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3790and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3791
3792*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3793
3794* Irix 5 is now supported
3795
3796* HPPA support
3797
3798GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3799to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3800GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3801of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3802can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3803
3804
3805*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3806
3807* User visible changes:
3808
3809* Remote Debugging
3810
3811The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3812target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3813debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3814integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3815debugging info for the mips target).
3816
3817* DEC Alpha native support
3818
3819GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3820debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3821work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3822Alpha-specific notes.
3823
3824* Preliminary thread implementation
3825
3826GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3827
3828* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3829
3830This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3831to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3832for details).
3833
3834* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3835
3836This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3837mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3838call methods, ...etc.
3839
3840*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3841
3842 * User visible changes:
3843
3844Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3845supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3846other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3847somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3848
3849Filename completion now works.
3850
3851When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3852arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3853addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3854
3855All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3856vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3857should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3858your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3859to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3860
3861 * DEC alpha support
3862
3863This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3864cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3865
3866
3867*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3868
3869 * Testsuite
3870
3871This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3872The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3873via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3874
3875 * C++ demangling
3876
3877'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3878emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3879Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3880disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3881use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3882
3883 * Simulators
3884
3885GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3886So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3887Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3888
3889 * New targets supported
3890
3891H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3892H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3893SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3894Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3895IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3896
3897Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3898version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3899GO32 memory extender.
3900
3901 * New remote protocols
3902
3903MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3904
3905 * New source languages supported
3906
3907This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3908used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3909into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3910
3911
3912*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3913
3914 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3915
3916GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3917version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3918University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3919compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3920format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3921(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3922
3923Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3924
3925 * Faster and better demangling
3926
3927We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3928demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3929character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3930only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3931This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3932increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3933symbol lookups.
3934
3935`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3936from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3937compiler does not actually implement.
3938
3939 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3940
3941In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3942inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3943recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3944very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3945The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3946circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3947fix.
3948
3949The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3950release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3951
3952 * Improved configure script
3953
3954The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3955you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3956host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3957done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3958
3959We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3960version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3961`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3962The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3963only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3964We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3965
3966 * Documentation improvements
3967
3968There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3969produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3970before submitting changes.
3971
3972The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3973M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3974`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3975you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3976a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3977
3978*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3979We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3980been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3981or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3982`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3983around this problem.
3984
3985 * New features
3986
3987GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3988the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3989`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3990the target program.
3991
3992The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3993how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3994
3995 * New native hosts supported
3996
3997HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3998386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3999
4000 * New targets supported
4001
4002AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4003
4004 * New file formats supported
4005
4006BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4007HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4008
4009 * Major bug fixes
4010
4011Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4012
4013We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4014printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4015
4016We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4017for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4018release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4019
4020You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4021will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4022
4023We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4024for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4025especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4026libraries.
4027
4028The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4029information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4030command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4031any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4032when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4033
4034 * Internal improvements
4035
4036GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4037debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4038
4039GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4040Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4041symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4042contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4043shared code that handles any of them.
4044
4045 * New command line options
4046
4047We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4048
4049 * Mmalloc licensing
4050
4051The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4052General Public License.
4053
4054*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4055
4056 * Host/native/target split
4057
4058GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4059hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4060target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4061local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4062ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4063
4064The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4065GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4066is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4067code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4068any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4069built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4070handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4071
4072GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4073It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4074plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4075
4076 * New hosts supported
4077
4078HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4079386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4080386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4081
4082 * New targets supported
4083
4084Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
408568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4086
4087 * New native hosts supported
4088
4089386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4090 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4091386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4092
4093 * New file formats supported
4094
4095BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4096supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4097format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4098
4099 * New commands
4100
4101`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4102`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4103These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4104
4105`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4106
4107You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4108scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4109prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4110executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4111
4112 * C++ improvements
4113
4114We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4115info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4116symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4117
4118Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4119
4120 * Major bug fixes
4121
4122The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4123fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4124by the compiler.
4125
4126We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4127support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4128
4129John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4130slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4131that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4132purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4133the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4134mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4135
4136Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4137about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4138completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4139we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4140
4141 * AMD 29k support
4142
4143A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4144specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4145calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4146usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4147in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4148
4149We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4150Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4151of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4152resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4153
4154 * Remote interfaces
4155
4156We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4157with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4158message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4159This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4160needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4161breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4162each instruction being stepped through.
4163
4164The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4165registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4166
4167There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4168find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4169Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4170processor with a serial port.
4171
4172 * Configuration
4173
4174Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4175`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4176supported, and what files each one uses.
4177
4178 * Library changes
4179
4180There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4181disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4182Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4183disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4184
4185The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4186Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4187can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4188grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4189
4190 * Documentation
4191
4192The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4193reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4194as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4195encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4196system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4197bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4198
4199And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4200
4201
4202*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4203
4204 * Better support for C++ function names
4205
4206GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4207names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4208(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4209single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4210Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4211
4212GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4213the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4214You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4215lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4216for the list of formats.
4217
4218 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4219
4220Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4221C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4222directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4223can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4224usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4225about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4226this problem.)
4227
4228 * New 'maintenance' command
4229
4230All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4231the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4232can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4233
4234 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4235 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4236 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4237 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4238 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4239 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4240
4241The following commands are new:
4242
4243 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4244 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4245 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4246
4247 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4248
4249We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4250(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4251be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4252read after argv processing.
4253
4254 * New hosts supported
4255
4256Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4257
55241689 4258GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4259
4260We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4261is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4262for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4263masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4264fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4265It costs extra.
4266
4267 * New targets supported
4268
4269Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4270
4271 * More smarts about finding #include files
4272
4273GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4274all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4275greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4276especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4277the one that contains your sources.
4278
4279We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4280breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4281try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4282
4283 * Interesting infernals change
4284
4285GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4286section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4287target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4288stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4289
4290 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4291
4292There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4293 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4294 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4295
4296See the ChangeLog for details.
4297
4298*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4299
4300 * New machines supported (host and target)
4301
4302IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4303
4304SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4305
4306 * New malloc package
4307
4308GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4309Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4310capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4311This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4312pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4313more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4314
4315 * info proc
4316
4317The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4318'help info proc' for details.
4319
4320 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4321
4322The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4323Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4324possible.
4325
4326 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4327
4328Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4329support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4330conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4331environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4332that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4333in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4334
4335 * Cross byte order fixes
4336
4337Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4338targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4339
4340 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4341
4342If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4343system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4344`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4345program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4346called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4347Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4348and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4349the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4350option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4351starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4352
4353You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4354the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4355information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4356slower, but makes future operations faster.
4357
4358The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4359build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4360A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4361use is:
4362
4363 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4364
4365The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4366It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4367shared across multiple host platforms.
4368
4369 * longjmp() handling
4370
4371GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4372siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4373all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4374platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4375
4376 * Solaris 2.0
4377
4378Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4379this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4380reading symbols.
4381
4382 * Bug fixes
4383
4384As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4385People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4386crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4387
4388*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4389
4390 * New machines supported (host and target)
4391
4392SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4393 (except core files)
4394BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4395Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4396
4397 * New machines supported (target)
4398
4399AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4400
4401 * C++ support
4402
4403GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4404The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4405per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4406
4407GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4408`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4409extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4410good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4411will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4412released.
4413
4414 * New features for SVR4
4415
4416GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4417shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4418only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4419
4420The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4421on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4422it prints the address mappings of the process.
4423
4424If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4425bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4426
4427 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4428
4429Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4430now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4431skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4432make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4433same code linked statically.
4434
4435 * New Getopt
4436
4437GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4438version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4439continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4440Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4441added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4442future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4443
4444 * Bugs fixed
4445
4446The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4447Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4448See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4449
4450
4451*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4452
4453 * New machines supported (host and target)
4454
4455Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4456NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4457Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4458
4459 * Almost SCO Unix support
4460
4461We had hoped to support:
4462SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4463(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4464that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4465about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4466
4467 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4468
4469GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4470debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4471is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4472send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4473reqired (if any).
4474
4475 * New Readline
4476
4477GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4478is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4479required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4480
4481 * Bugs fixed
4482
4483The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4484Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4485See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4486
4487 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4488
4489GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4490supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4491symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4492
4493Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4494mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4495debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4496mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4497version 2.
4498
4499Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4500really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4501line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4502variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4503situation somewhat.
4504
4505When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4506However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4507methods.
4508
4509We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4510DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4511encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4512
4513
4514*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4515
4516 * Improved configuration
4517
4518Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4519Porting BFD is simpler.
4520
4521 * Stepping improved
4522
4523The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4524of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4525in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4526function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4527
4528 * Bug fixing
4529
4530Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4531
4532 * New host supported (not target)
4533
4534Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4535
4536
4537*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4538
4539 * Multiple source language support
4540
4541GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4542It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4543and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4544language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4545You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4546`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4547
4548 * GDB and Modula-2
4549
4550GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4551currently under development at the State University of New York at
4552Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4553continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4554
4555Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4556debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4557symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4558
4559There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4560in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4561
4562 * set write on/off
4563
4564GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4565a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4566the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4567by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4568effect immediately.
4569
4570 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4571
4572When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4573shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4574The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4575examining core files.
4576
4577 * set listsize
4578
4579You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4580The default is 10.
4581
4582 * New machines supported (host and target)
4583
4584SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4585Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4586Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4587
4588 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4589
4590IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4591
4592 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4593
4594AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4595AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4596Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4597
4598 * New remote interfaces
4599
4600AMD 29000 Adapt
4601AMD 29000 Minimon
4602
4603
4604*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4605
4606 * New Facilities
4607
4608Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4609
4610Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4611target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4612is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4613remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4614remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4615also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4616using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4617stub on the target system.
4618
4619New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4620
4621GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4622library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4623object file types such as a.out and coff.
4624
4625There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4626refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4627
4628
4629 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4630
4631All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4632by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4633
4634For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4635``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4636Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4637
4638What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4639print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4640will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4641all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4642
4643confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4644 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4645 it is already running. Default is ON.
4646
4647editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4648 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4649 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4650 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4651 Default is ON.
4652
4653history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4654 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4655 or the value of the environment variable
4656 GDBHISTFILE.
4657
4658history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4659 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4660 HISTSIZE.
4661
4662history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4663 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4664 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4665
4666history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4667 history expansion will be performed on
4668 command line input. The default is OFF.
4669
4670radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4671 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4672 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4673
4674height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4675 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4676 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4677 variable TERM.
4678
4679width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4680 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4681 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4682 variable TERM.
4683
4684Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4685``set width'' instead.
4686
4687print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4688 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4689 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4690 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4691
4692print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4693 is OFF.
4694
4695print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4696 "raw" form if off.
4697
4698print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4699 like instructions.
4700
4701print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4702
4703
4704 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4705
4706The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4707new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4708are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4709window.
4710
4711
4712 * Support for Shared Libraries
4713
4714GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4715Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4716before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4717happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4718At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4719from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4720shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4721It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4722
4723sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4724 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4725 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4726
4727info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4728
4729
4730 * Watchpoints
4731
4732A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4733expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4734tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4735quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4736problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4737more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4738
4739watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4740
4741info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4742
4743delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4744disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4745enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4746
4747
4748 * C++ multiple inheritance
4749
4750When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4751for C++ programs.
4752
4753 * C++ exception handling
4754
4755Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4756ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4757the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4758handler's context).
4759
4760catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4761 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4762 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4763
4764info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4765 current stack frame.
4766
4767
4768 * Minor command changes
4769
4770The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4771command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4772is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4773
4774The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4775at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4776frames without printing.
4777
4778 * New directory command
4779
4780'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4781The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4782about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4783with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4784find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4785
4786 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4787
4788For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4789for more details.
4790
4791GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4792two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4793Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4794where the program that you are debugging will run.
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