2003-02-04 David Carlton <carlton@math.stanford.edu>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.3:
5
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6* d10v `regs' command deprecated
7
8The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
10
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11* Profiling support
12
13A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17data, for more informative profiling results.
18
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19* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
20
21The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23"mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
24
25Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
26removed.
27
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28Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
32
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33* OBSOLETE configurations and files
34
35Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
38permanently REMOVED.
39
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40* REMOVED configurations and files
41
42V850EA ISA
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43Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
44IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
45i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
46i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
47i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
48HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
49 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
50 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
51Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
52Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
53Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
54OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
55I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 56
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57* MIPS $fp behavior changed
58
59The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
60the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
61context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
62address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
63The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
64
299ffc64 65*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 66
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67* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
68
69When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
70`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
71in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
72library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
73shared libs like mad''.
74
b9d14705 75* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 76
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77Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
78the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
79arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
80powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 81
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82* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
83
84GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
85and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
86they expand.
87
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88The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
89invocations in expression, and shows the result.
90
91The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
92macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
93
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94Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
95information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
96your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
97information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
98
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99* Multi-arched targets.
100
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101DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
102DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 103NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 104National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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105Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
106Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 107
cd9bfe15 108* New targets.
e33ce519 109
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110Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
111
e33ce519 112
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113* New native configurations
114
115Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 116SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 117MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 118UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 119
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120* OBSOLETE configurations and files
121
122Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
123been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
124configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
125permanently REMOVED.
126
92eb23c5 127Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 128OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 129IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 130Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 131Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 132Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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133i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
134i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
135i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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136HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
137 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
138 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 139I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 140
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141* OBSOLETE languages
142
143CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
144
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145* REMOVED configurations and files
146
147AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
148A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
149AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
150AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
151AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
152
153testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
154
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155* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
156
157This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
158commands. The default is 1024.
159
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160* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
161
162Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
163
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164* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
165
166These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
167to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
168from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 169
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170* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
171
172The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
173including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
174of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
175
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176*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
177
178* New targets.
179
180Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
181
182* Bug fixes
183
184gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
185mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
186Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
187
188gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
189dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
190Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
191
192Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
193Surprisingly enough, it works now.
194By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
195
196i386 hardware watchpoint support:
197avoid misses on second run for some targets.
198By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
199
37057839 200*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 201
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202* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
203
204This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
205really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
206In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
207target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
208This can be a significant performance improvement on some
209(notably embedded) targets.
210
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211* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
212
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213This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
214process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
215GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
216hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 217
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218* New command line option
219
220GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
221
222* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
223
224There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
225command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
226a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
227be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
228open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
229issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
230a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
231it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
232GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
233is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
234
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235* Changes in ARM configurations.
236
237Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
238configuration is fully multi-arch.
239
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240* New native configurations
241
fe419ffc 242ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 243x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 244AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 245Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 246
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247* New targets
248
249Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
250
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251* OBSOLETE configurations and files
252
253Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
254been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
255configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
256permanently REMOVED.
257
258AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
259A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
260AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
261AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
262AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
263
b4ceaee6 264testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 265
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266* REMOVED configurations and files
267
268TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 269WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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270PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
271PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
272PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 273Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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274Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
275 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 276SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 277Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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278Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
279ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 280Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 281
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282* Changes to command line processing
283
284The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
285for the inferior from gdb's command line.
286
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287* Changes to key bindings
288
289There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
290
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291*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
292
293Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
294
295Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
296corrupted.
297
298Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
299
300Numerous documentation fixes.
301
302Numerous testsuite fixes.
303
34f47bc4 304*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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305
306* New native configurations
307
308Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
309x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 310MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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311MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
312ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 313s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 314
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315* New targets
316
def90278 317Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 318CRIS cris-axis
55241689 319UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 320
17e78a56 321* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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322
323x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 324Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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325Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
326 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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327TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
328WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 329Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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330PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
331PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
332PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 333SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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334Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
335ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 336Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 337
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338stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
339kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
340
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341Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
342been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
343configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
344permanently REMOVED.
345
a196c81c 346* REMOVED configurations and files
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347
348Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
349Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
350Pyramid pyramid-*-*
351ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
352Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 353ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 354
6d6b80e5 355* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 356
6d6b80e5 357GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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358sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
359present.
360
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361* Other news:
362
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363* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
364
365* The MI enabled by default.
366
367The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
368revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
369engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
370using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
371which is now deprecated.
372
373* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
374
375GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
376main features are supported:
377
378 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
379
380 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
381 extension;
382
383 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
384
385 - a Pascal expression parser.
386
387However, some important features are not yet supported.
388
389 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
390
391 - there are some problems with boolean types;
392
393 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
394 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
395
396 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
397
398 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
399
400* Changes in completion.
401
402Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
403to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
404users expect at the shell prompt.
405
406Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
407`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
408program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
409files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
410be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
411considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
412name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
413
414`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
415
416* New platform-independent commands:
417
418It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
419hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
420documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
421
422* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
423
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424Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
425revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
426many threads as your system allows you to have.
427
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428Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
429
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430Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
431multi-threaded programs though.
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432
433* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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434
435Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
436
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437GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
438debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
439supported.)
440
441* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
442
443Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
444breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
445implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
446put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
447and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
448registers.
449
450The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
451debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
452watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
453
454* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
455
456New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
457the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
458
459New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
460display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
461IDT.
462
463New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
464from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
465New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
466a given linear address.
467
468GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
469program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
470which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
471
472DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
473
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474It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
475
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476* Changes in documentation.
477
478All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
479Documentation License.
480
481Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
482manual.
483
484TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
485
486Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
487manual.
488
489The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
490documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
491hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
492
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493* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
494
495The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
496``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
497contents of this file.
498
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499* gdba.el deleted
500
501GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 502
9debab2f 503*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 504
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505* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
506
507Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
508programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
509displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
510greater level of detail.
511
512* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
513
514It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
515bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
516on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
517written.
518
519* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
520
521The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
522necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
523machines ``out of the box''.
524
525The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
526possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
527signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
528would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
529interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
530
531It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
532standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
533even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
534and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
535terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
536
537The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
538enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
539also works.
540
541DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
542GDB.
543
544It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
545directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
546times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
547breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
548
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549* New native configurations
550
551ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 552PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 553
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554* New targets
555
96baa820 556Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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557x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
558PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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559TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
560
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561* OBSOLETE configurations
562
563Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
564Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 565Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 566ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 567Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 568
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569Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
570but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
571these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
572be permanently REMOVED.
573
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574* Gould support removed
575
576Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
577
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578* New features for SVR4
579
580On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
581without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
582load symbols from the running process's executable file.
583
584* Many C++ enhancements
585
586C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
587in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
588
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589* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
590
591A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
592sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
593with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
594``|<program> <args>'' vis:
595
596 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
597 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
598
43e526b9
JM
599* MIPS 64 remote protocol
600
601A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
602expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
603instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
604
605The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
606added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
607
96baa820
JM
608* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
609
610The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
611``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
612include ``set remote P-packet''.
613
11cf8741
JM
614* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
615
616The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
617accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
618``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
619
7876dd43
DB
620* ``apropos'' command added.
621
622The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
623documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
624try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
625
bc9e5bbf
AC
626* New MI interface
627
628A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
629interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
630process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
631"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
632enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
633
634 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
635
c906108c
SS
636*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
637
638* New native configurations
639
640HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
641HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 642M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
643
644* New targets
645
646Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
647Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
648Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
649
650* OBSOLETE configurations
651
652Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
653
654Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
655but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
656these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
657be permanently REMOVED.
658
659* ANSI/ISO C
660
661As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
662buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
663containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
664use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
665available. If this is not true, please report the affected
666configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
667information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
668already.
669
670* Readline 2.2
671
672GDB now uses readline 2.2.
673
674* set extension-language
675
676You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
677languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
678you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
679 set extension-language .c c++
680The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
681and their associated languages.
682
683* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
684
685When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
686you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
687PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
688
689 set processor NAME
690
691sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
692following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
693
694 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
695 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
696 403 IBM PowerPC 403
697 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
698 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
699 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
700 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
701 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
702 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
703 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
704 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
705
706At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
707special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
708registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
709only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
710
711* HP-UX support
712
713Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
714more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
715library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
716support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
717for xdb and dbx commands.
718
719* Catchpoints
720
721HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
722generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
723to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
724
725This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
726argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
727output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
728
729* Debugging across forks
730
731On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
732in the inferior.
733
734* TUI
735
736HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
737it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
738configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
739
740* GDB remote protocol additions
741
742A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
743Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
744fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
745allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
746
747For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
748full 64-bit address. The command
749
750 set remoteaddresssize 32
751
752can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
753the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
754will be discarded.
755
756In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
757command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
758
759 maint packet heythere
760
761sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
762disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
763time.
764
765The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
766target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
767downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
768
769* Tracing can collect general expressions
770
771You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
772further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
773doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
774
775* mask-address variable for Mips
776
777For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
778a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
779of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
780
781* Higher serial baud rates
782
783GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
784230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
785to achieve all of these rates.)
786
787* i960 simulator
788
789The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
790builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
791
792
793*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
794
795* New native configurations
796
797Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
798Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
799Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
800PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
801PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
802Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
803Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
804
805* New targets
806
807Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
808Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
809Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
810Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
811MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
812MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
813MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
814Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
815Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
816Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
817NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
818
819* New debugging protocols
820
821ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
822M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
823DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
824PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
825PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
826Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
827
828* DWARF 2
829
830All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
831format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
832information.
833
834* Java frontend
835
836GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
837only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
838
839* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
840
841For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
842loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
843locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
844
845* Live range splitting
846
847GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
848range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
849more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
850
851* Hurd support
852
853GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
854updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
855
856* ARM Thumb support
857
858GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
859instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
860instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
861accordingly.
862
863* MIPS16 support
864
865GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
866instruction set.
867
868* Overlay support
869
870GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
871linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
872will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
873control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
874additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
875in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
876
877* info symbol
878
879The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
880the symbol at the specified address.
881
882* Trace support
883
884The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
885asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
886extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
887includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
888file tracepoint.c for more details.
889
890* MIPS simulator
891
892Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
893by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
894of most MIPS variants.
895
896* Sparc simulator
897
898Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
899by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
900Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
901
902* set architecture
903
904For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
905basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
906architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
907the possible architectures.
908
909*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
910
911* New native configurations
912
913Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
914M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
915PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
916PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
917PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
918RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
919
920* New targets
921
922ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
923I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
924MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
925MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
926PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
927Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
928Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
929
930* PowerPC simulator
931
932The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
933contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
934PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
935basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
936performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
937
938* Solaris 2.5
939
940GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
941
942* Windows 95/NT native
943
944GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
945To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
946which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
947Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
948ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
949
950* dont-repeat command
951
952If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
953command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
954useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
955extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
956
957* Send break instead of ^C
958
959The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
960rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
961GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
962
963* Remote protocol timeout
964
965The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
966that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
967to read from the target. The default value is 2.
968
969* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
970
971By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
972loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
973stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
974when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
975in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
976
977Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
978/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
979automatically on hpux10.
980
981* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
982
983Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
984
985* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
986
987When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
988may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
989the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
990every character. The default value is 1050.
991
992* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
993
994If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
995a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
996replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
997details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
998remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
999to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1000
1001* Speedups for remote debugging
1002
1003GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1004the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1005and more efficient S-record downloading.
1006
1007* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1008
1009GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1010Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1011
1012*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1013
1014* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1015
1016The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1017can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1018
1019* Remote targets use caching
1020
1021Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1022remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1023it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1024debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1025off' turns the the data cache off.
1026
1027* Remote targets may have threads
1028
1029The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1030in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1031gdb/remote.c for details.
1032
1033* NetROM support
1034
1035If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1036support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1037acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1038write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1039support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1040another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1041sequence is something like
1042
1043 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1044 load <prog>
1045 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1046
1047* Macintosh host
1048
1049GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1050may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1051it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1052available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1053device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1054directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1055scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1056mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1057
1058* Autoconf
1059
1060GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1061but does simplify configuration and building.
1062
1063* hpux10
1064
1065GDB now supports hpux10.
1066
1067*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1068
1069* New native configurations
1070
1071x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1072x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1073NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1074Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1075
1076* New targets
1077
1078A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1079HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1080CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1081PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1082WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1083
1084* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1085
1086GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1087possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1088filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1089the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1090if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1091
1092* Arguments to user-defined commands
1093
1094User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1095Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1096trivial example:
1097define adder
1098 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1099
1100To execute the command use:
1101adder 1 2 3
1102
1103Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1104Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1105use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1106
1107* New `if' and `while' commands
1108
1109This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1110commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1111expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1112execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1113terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1114`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1115if the expression is zero.
1116
1117* Fortran source language mode
1118
1119GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1120Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1121variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1122with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1123Fortran compilers.
1124
1125* Better HPUX support
1126
1127Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1128running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1129processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1130for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1131that behavior do the following before running the program:
1132
1133 adb -w a.out
1134 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1135 control-d
1136
1137This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1138To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1139
1140 adb -w a.out
1141 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1142 control-d
1143
1144You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1145the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1146external linkage.
1147
1148GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1149HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1150
1151* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1152
1153You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1154commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1155current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1156"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1157associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1158configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1159
1160* New DOS host serial code
1161
1162This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1163no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1164a PC's serial port.
1165
1166*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1167
1168* New "complete" command
1169
1170This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1171were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1172
1173* Trailing space optional in prompt
1174
1175"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1176allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1177
1178* Breakpoint hit counts
1179
1180"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1181has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1182can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1183to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1184less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1185that breakpoint.
1186
1187* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1188
1189"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1190an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1191arrays actually contain only short strings.
1192
1193* Shared library breakpoints
1194
1195In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1196breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1197
1198* Hardware watchpoints
1199
1200There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1201targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1202
55241689 1203Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1204
1205* Annotations
1206
1207Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1208and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1209
1210* Improved Irix 5 support
1211
1212GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1213
1214* Improved HPPA support
1215
1216GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1217
1218* New native configurations
1219
1220Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1221HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1222Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1223RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1224
1225* New targets
1226
1227OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1228MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1229Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1230
1231* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1232
1233There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1234This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1235
1236* Fixes
1237
1238As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1239and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1240
1241*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1242
1243* Irix 5 is now supported
1244
1245* HPPA support
1246
1247GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1248to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1249GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1250of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1251can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1252
1253
1254*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1255
1256* User visible changes:
1257
1258* Remote Debugging
1259
1260The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1261target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1262debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1263integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1264debugging info for the mips target).
1265
1266* DEC Alpha native support
1267
1268GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1269debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1270work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1271Alpha-specific notes.
1272
1273* Preliminary thread implementation
1274
1275GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1276
1277* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1278
1279This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1280to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1281for details).
1282
1283* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1284
1285This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1286mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1287call methods, ...etc.
1288
1289*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1290
1291 * User visible changes:
1292
1293Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1294supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1295other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1296somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1297
1298Filename completion now works.
1299
1300When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1301arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1302addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1303
1304All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1305vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1306should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1307your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1308to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1309
1310 * DEC alpha support
1311
1312This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1313cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1314
1315
1316*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1317
1318 * Testsuite
1319
1320This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1321The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1322via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1323
1324 * C++ demangling
1325
1326'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1327emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1328Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1329disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1330use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1331
1332 * Simulators
1333
1334GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1335So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1336Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1337
1338 * New targets supported
1339
1340H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1341H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1342SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1343Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1344IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1345
1346Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1347version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1348GO32 memory extender.
1349
1350 * New remote protocols
1351
1352MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1353
1354 * New source languages supported
1355
1356This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1357used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1358into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1359
1360
1361*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1362
1363 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1364
1365GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1366version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1367University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1368compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1369format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1370(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1371
1372Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1373
1374 * Faster and better demangling
1375
1376We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1377demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1378character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1379only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1380This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1381increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1382symbol lookups.
1383
1384`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1385from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1386compiler does not actually implement.
1387
1388 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1389
1390In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1391inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1392recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1393very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1394The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1395circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1396fix.
1397
1398The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1399release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1400
1401 * Improved configure script
1402
1403The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1404you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1405host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1406done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1407
1408We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1409version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1410`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1411The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1412only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1413We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1414
1415 * Documentation improvements
1416
1417There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1418produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1419before submitting changes.
1420
1421The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1422M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1423`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1424you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1425a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1426
1427*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1428We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1429been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1430or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1431`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1432around this problem.
1433
1434 * New features
1435
1436GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1437the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1438`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1439the target program.
1440
1441The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1442how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1443
1444 * New native hosts supported
1445
1446HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1447386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1448
1449 * New targets supported
1450
1451AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1452
1453 * New file formats supported
1454
1455BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1456HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1457
1458 * Major bug fixes
1459
1460Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1461
1462We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1463printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1464
1465We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1466for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1467release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1468
1469You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1470will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1471
1472We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1473for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1474especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1475libraries.
1476
1477The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1478information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1479command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1480any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1481when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1482
1483 * Internal improvements
1484
1485GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1486debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1487
1488GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1489Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1490symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1491contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1492shared code that handles any of them.
1493
1494 * New command line options
1495
1496We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1497
1498 * Mmalloc licensing
1499
1500The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1501General Public License.
1502
1503*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1504
1505 * Host/native/target split
1506
1507GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1508hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1509target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1510local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1511ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1512
1513The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1514GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1515is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1516code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1517any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1518built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1519handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1520
1521GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1522It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1523plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1524
1525 * New hosts supported
1526
1527HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1528386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1529386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1530
1531 * New targets supported
1532
1533Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
153468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1535
1536 * New native hosts supported
1537
1538386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1539 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1540386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1541
1542 * New file formats supported
1543
1544BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1545supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1546format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1547
1548 * New commands
1549
1550`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1551`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1552These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1553
1554`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1555
1556You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1557scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1558prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1559executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1560
1561 * C++ improvements
1562
1563We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1564info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1565symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1566
1567Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1568
1569 * Major bug fixes
1570
1571The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1572fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1573by the compiler.
1574
1575We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1576support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1577
1578John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1579slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1580that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1581purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1582the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1583mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1584
1585Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1586about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1587completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1588we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1589
1590 * AMD 29k support
1591
1592A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1593specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1594calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1595usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1596in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1597
1598We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1599Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1600of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1601resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1602
1603 * Remote interfaces
1604
1605We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1606with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1607message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1608This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1609needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1610breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1611each instruction being stepped through.
1612
1613The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1614registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1615
1616There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1617find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1618Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1619processor with a serial port.
1620
1621 * Configuration
1622
1623Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1624`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1625supported, and what files each one uses.
1626
1627 * Library changes
1628
1629There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1630disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1631Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1632disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1633
1634The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1635Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1636can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1637grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1638
1639 * Documentation
1640
1641The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1642reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1643as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1644encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1645system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1646bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1647
1648And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1649
1650
1651*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1652
1653 * Better support for C++ function names
1654
1655GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1656names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1657(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1658single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1659Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1660
1661GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1662the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1663You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1664lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1665for the list of formats.
1666
1667 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1668
1669Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1670C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1671directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1672can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1673usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1674about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1675this problem.)
1676
1677 * New 'maintenance' command
1678
1679All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1680the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1681can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1682
1683 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1684 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1685 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1686 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1687 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1688 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1689
1690The following commands are new:
1691
1692 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1693 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1694 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1695
1696 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1697
1698We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1699(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1700be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1701read after argv processing.
1702
1703 * New hosts supported
1704
1705Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1706
55241689 1707GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1708
1709We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1710is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1711for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1712masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1713fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1714It costs extra.
1715
1716 * New targets supported
1717
1718Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1719
1720 * More smarts about finding #include files
1721
1722GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1723all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1724greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1725especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1726the one that contains your sources.
1727
1728We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1729breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1730try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1731
1732 * Interesting infernals change
1733
1734GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1735section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1736target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1737stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1738
1739 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1740
1741There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1742 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1743 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1744
1745See the ChangeLog for details.
1746
1747*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1748
1749 * New machines supported (host and target)
1750
1751IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1752
1753SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1754
1755 * New malloc package
1756
1757GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1758Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1759capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1760This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1761pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1762more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1763
1764 * info proc
1765
1766The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1767'help info proc' for details.
1768
1769 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1770
1771The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1772Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1773possible.
1774
1775 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1776
1777Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1778support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1779conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1780environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1781that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1782in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1783
1784 * Cross byte order fixes
1785
1786Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1787targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1788
1789 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1790
1791If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1792system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1793`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1794program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1795called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1796Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1797and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1798the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1799option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1800starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1801
1802You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1803the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1804information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1805slower, but makes future operations faster.
1806
1807The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1808build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1809A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1810use is:
1811
1812 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1813
1814The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1815It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1816shared across multiple host platforms.
1817
1818 * longjmp() handling
1819
1820GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1821siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1822all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1823platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1824
1825 * Solaris 2.0
1826
1827Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1828this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1829reading symbols.
1830
1831 * Bug fixes
1832
1833As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1834People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1835crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1836
1837*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1838
1839 * New machines supported (host and target)
1840
1841SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1842 (except core files)
1843BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1844Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1845
1846 * New machines supported (target)
1847
1848AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1849
1850 * C++ support
1851
1852GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1853The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1854per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1855
1856GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1857`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1858extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1859good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1860will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1861released.
1862
1863 * New features for SVR4
1864
1865GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1866shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1867only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1868
1869The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1870on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1871it prints the address mappings of the process.
1872
1873If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1874bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1875
1876 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1877
1878Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1879now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1880skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1881make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1882same code linked statically.
1883
1884 * New Getopt
1885
1886GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1887version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1888continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1889Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1890added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1891future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1892
1893 * Bugs fixed
1894
1895The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1896Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1897See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1898
1899
1900*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1901
1902 * New machines supported (host and target)
1903
1904Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1905NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1906Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1907
1908 * Almost SCO Unix support
1909
1910We had hoped to support:
1911SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1912(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1913that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1914about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1915
1916 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1917
1918GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1919debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1920is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1921send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1922reqired (if any).
1923
1924 * New Readline
1925
1926GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1927is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1928required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1929
1930 * Bugs fixed
1931
1932The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1933Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1934See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1935
1936 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1937
1938GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1939supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1940symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1941
1942Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1943mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1944debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1945mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1946version 2.
1947
1948Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1949really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1950line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1951variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1952situation somewhat.
1953
1954When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1955However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1956methods.
1957
1958We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1959DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1960encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1961
1962
1963*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1964
1965 * Improved configuration
1966
1967Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1968Porting BFD is simpler.
1969
1970 * Stepping improved
1971
1972The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1973of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1974in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1975function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1976
1977 * Bug fixing
1978
1979Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1980
1981 * New host supported (not target)
1982
1983Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1984
1985
1986*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1987
1988 * Multiple source language support
1989
1990GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1991It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1992and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1993language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1994You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1995`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1996
1997 * GDB and Modula-2
1998
1999GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2000currently under development at the State University of New York at
2001Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2002continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2003
2004Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2005debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2006symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2007
2008There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2009in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2010
2011 * set write on/off
2012
2013GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2014a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2015the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2016by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2017effect immediately.
2018
2019 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2020
2021When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2022shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2023The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2024examining core files.
2025
2026 * set listsize
2027
2028You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2029The default is 10.
2030
2031 * New machines supported (host and target)
2032
2033SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2034Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2035Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2036
2037 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2038
2039IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2040
2041 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2042
2043AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2044AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2045Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2046
2047 * New remote interfaces
2048
2049AMD 29000 Adapt
2050AMD 29000 Minimon
2051
2052
2053*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2054
2055 * New Facilities
2056
2057Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2058
2059Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2060target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2061is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2062remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2063remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2064also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2065using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2066stub on the target system.
2067
2068New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2069
2070GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2071library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2072object file types such as a.out and coff.
2073
2074There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2075refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2076
2077
2078 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2079
2080All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2081by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2082
2083For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2084``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2085Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2086
2087What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2088print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2089will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2090all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2091
2092confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2093 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2094 it is already running. Default is ON.
2095
2096editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2097 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2098 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2099 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2100 Default is ON.
2101
2102history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2103 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2104 or the value of the environment variable
2105 GDBHISTFILE.
2106
2107history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2108 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2109 HISTSIZE.
2110
2111history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2112 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2113 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2114
2115history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2116 history expansion will be performed on
2117 command line input. The default is OFF.
2118
2119radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2120 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2121 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2122
2123height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2124 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2125 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2126 variable TERM.
2127
2128width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2129 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2130 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2131 variable TERM.
2132
2133Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2134``set width'' instead.
2135
2136print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2137 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2138 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2139 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2140
2141print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2142 is OFF.
2143
2144print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2145 "raw" form if off.
2146
2147print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2148 like instructions.
2149
2150print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2151
2152
2153 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2154
2155The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2156new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2157are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2158window.
2159
2160
2161 * Support for Shared Libraries
2162
2163GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2164Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2165before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2166happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2167At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2168from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2169shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2170It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2171
2172sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2173 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2174 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2175
2176info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2177
2178
2179 * Watchpoints
2180
2181A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2182expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2183tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2184quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2185problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2186more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2187
2188watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2189
2190info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2191
2192delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2193disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2194enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2195
2196
2197 * C++ multiple inheritance
2198
2199When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2200for C++ programs.
2201
2202 * C++ exception handling
2203
2204Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2205ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2206the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2207handler's context).
2208
2209catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2210 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2211 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2212
2213info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2214 current stack frame.
2215
2216
2217 * Minor command changes
2218
2219The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2220command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2221is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2222
2223The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2224at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2225frames without printing.
2226
2227 * New directory command
2228
2229'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2230The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2231about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2232with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2233find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2234
2235 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2236
2237For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2238for more details.
2239
2240GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2241two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2242Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2243where the program that you are debugging will run.
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