2009-10-15 Doug Kwan <dougkwan@google.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
abc7453d
JB
4*** Changes since GDB 7.0
5
6*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 7
4efc6507
DE
8* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
9dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
10them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
11for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
12"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
13
782b2b07
SS
14* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
15breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
16or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
17the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
18for tracepoint actions.
19
e6158f16
HZ
20* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
21in hex as well as in symbolic form."
22
e7a8dbfb
HZ
23* Process record and replay
24
25 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
26 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
27 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
28 execute commands.
29
64644d9b
MS
30* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
31step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
32set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
33reverse execution.
34
b9412953
DD
35* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
36feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
372.6.28 or later.
38
6c7a06a3
TT
39* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
40target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
41char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
42literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
43U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
44`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
45system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
46the installation instructions for more information.
47
f1838a98
UW
48* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
49remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
50with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
51the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
52
55333a84
DE
53* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
54and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
55
7f6a6314
PM
56* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
57now complete on file names.
58
65d12d83
TT
59* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
60completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
61For instance, consider:
62
63 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
64 # struct example variable;
65 (gdb) p variable.
66
67If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
68completions will be "f1" and "f2".
69
edb3359d
DJ
70* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
71the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
72
2fae03e8
TT
73* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
74operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
75macros.
76
47a3467a 77* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
78the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
79implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
80
81* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
82registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
83can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
84and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 85
08388c79
DE
86* New remote packets
87
88qSearch:memory:
89 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
90
a6f3e723
SL
91QStartNoAckMode
92 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
93 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
94 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
95
d7713ae0
EZ
96vKill
97 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
98 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
99
07e059b5
VP
100qXfer:osdata:read
101 Obtains additional operating system information
102
47a3467a
PA
103qXfer:siginfo:read
104qXfer:siginfo:write
105 Read or write additional signal information.
106
060871df
PA
107* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
108
109 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
110 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
111 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
112
d14508fe
DE
113* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
114source+assembly.
115
c055b101 116* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 117DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
118
119* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
120and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
121`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 122
31fffb02
CS
123* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
124with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
125
88d8a8e0
JB
126* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
127
7f99b190
JB
128* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
129
ccd213ac
DJ
130* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
131which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
132
1fddbabb 133* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 134list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 135
a0ef4274
DJ
136* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
137conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
138have also been fixed.
139
bfb8797a 140* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
141From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
142are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 143
71c25dea
TT
144* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
145example, given:
146
147 template<typename T> class C { };
148 C<char const *> c;
149
150GDB will now correctly handle all of:
151
152 ptype C<char const *>
153 ptype C<char const*>
154 ptype C<const char *>
155 ptype C<const char*>
156
ccd213ac
DJ
157* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
158
159 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
160 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
161
7ae0e2a2
UW
162 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
163 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
164 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
165
a6f3e723
SL
166 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
167 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
168
da8bd9a3
DJ
169 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
170 gdbserver.
171
d70e31dd
DE
172 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
173 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
174
175 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
176 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
177 as appropriate.
178
d57a3c85
TJB
179* Python scripting
180
181 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
182 available is determined at configure time.
183
d8906c6f
TJB
184 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
185
aadc346a
JB
186* Ada tasking support
187
188 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
189 been introduced:
190
191 info tasks
192 Print the list of Ada tasks.
193 info task N
194 Print detailed information about task number N.
195 task
196 Print the task number of the current task.
197 task N
198 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
199
adb483fe
DJ
200* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
201add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
202
2277426b
PA
203* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
204
205 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
206 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
207 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
208 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
209 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
210 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
211 below.
212
08d16641
PA
213* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
214"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
215information.
216
e35359c5
UW
217* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
218to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
219architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
220See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
221more information.
222
85e747d2
UW
223* Multi-architecture debugging.
224
225 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
226 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
227 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
228 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
229 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
230
231* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
232use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
233Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
234powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
235--enable-targets configure option.
236
11ade57a
PA
237* Non-stop mode debugging.
238
239 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
240 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
241 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
242 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
243 section in the user manual for more information.
244
245 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
246 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
247 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
248 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
249 extensions on linux targets.
250
d7713ae0 251* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 252
a96d9b2e
SDJ
253catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
254 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
255 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
256 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
257 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
258 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
259 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
260 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
261 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
262
08388c79
DE
263find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
264 val1 [, val2, ...]
265 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
266
d57a3c85
TJB
267maint set python print-stack
268maint show python print-stack
269 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
270
271python [CODE]
272 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
273
d7713ae0
EZ
274macro define
275macro list
276macro undef
277 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
278 interactively.
279
280info os processes
281 Show operating system information about processes.
282
2277426b
PA
283info inferiors
284 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
285
286inferior NUM
287 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
288
289detach inferior NUM
290 Detach from inferior number NUM.
291
292kill inferior NUM
293 Kill inferior number NUM.
294
d7713ae0
EZ
295* New options
296
3285f3fe
UW
297set spu stop-on-load
298show spu stop-on-load
299 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
300
ff1a52c6
UW
301set spu auto-flush-cache
302show spu auto-flush-cache
303 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
304 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
305
d7713ae0
EZ
306set sh calling-convention
307show sh calling-convention
308 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
309
e0a3ce09 310set debug timestamp
75feb17d 311show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
312 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
313
314set disassemble-next-line
315show disassemble-next-line
316 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
317 the debuggee stops.
318
319set remote noack-packet
320show remote noack-packet
321 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
322 under "New remote packets."
323
324set remote query-attached-packet
325show remote query-attached-packet
326 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
327
328set remote read-siginfo-object
329show remote read-siginfo-object
330 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
331 packet.
332
333set remote write-siginfo-object
334show remote write-siginfo-object
335 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
336 packet.
337
40ab02ce
MS
338set remote reverse-continue
339show remote reverse-continue
340 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
341
342set remote reverse-step
343show remote reverse-step
344 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
345
d7713ae0
EZ
346set displaced-stepping
347show displaced-stepping
348 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
349 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
350 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
351
352set debug displaced
353show debug displaced
354 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
355
356maint set internal-error
357maint show internal-error
358 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
359
360maint set internal-warning
361maint show internal-warning
362 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 363
ccd213ac
DJ
364set exec-wrapper
365show exec-wrapper
366unset exec-wrapper
367 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 368
aad4b048
JB
369set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
370show multiple-symbols
371 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
372 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
373 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
374
74960c60
VP
375set breakpoint always-inserted
376show breakpoint always-inserted
377 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
378 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
379 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
380
0428b8f5
DJ
381set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
382show arm fallback-mode
383set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
384show arm force-mode
385 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
386 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
387 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
388 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
389
10568435
JK
390set disable-randomization
391show disable-randomization
392 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
393 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
394 multiple debugging sessions.
395
d7713ae0
EZ
396set non-stop
397show non-stop
398 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
399 a breakpoint.
400
b3eb342c 401set target-async
d7713ae0 402show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
403 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
404 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
405 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
406 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
407
6c7a06a3
TT
408set target-wide-charset
409show target-wide-charset
410 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
411 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
412
84603566
SL
413set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
414show tcp auto-retry
415set tcp connect-timeout
416show tcp connect-timeout
417 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
418 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
419 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
420
17a37d48
PP
421set libthread-db-search-path
422show libthread-db-search-path
423 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
424 libthread_db.
425
d4db2f36
PA
426set schedule-multiple (on|off)
427show schedule-multiple
428 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
429 the current process.
430
4e5d721f
DE
431set stack-cache
432show stack-cache
433 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
434 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
435 affecting correctness.
436
910c5da8
JB
437set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
438show interactive-mode
439 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
440 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
441 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
442 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
443 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
444
2277426b
PA
445* Removed commands
446
447info forks
448 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
449 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
450 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
451 command.
452
453fork NUM
454 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
455 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
456 alias for the `fork' command.
457
458process PID
459 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
460 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
461 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
462
463delete fork NUM
464 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
465 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
466 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
467 fork' command.
468
469detach fork NUM
470 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
471 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
472 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
473 fork' command.
474
a80b95ba
TG
475* New native configurations
476
477x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
478
b8bfd3ed
JB
479x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
480
75a2d5e7
TT
481* New targets
482
c28c63d8 483Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 484x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 485x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 486S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 487
6de3146c
PA
488* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
489 (mingw32ce) debugging.
490
d5cbbe6e
JB
491* Removed commands
492
493catch load
494catch unload
495 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
496
75feb17d 497*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 498
af5ca30d
NH
499* New native configurations
500
501NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 502Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
503
504* New targets
505
506NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 507Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 508
7a404eba
PA
509* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
510
511 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
512 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
513 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
514 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
515
430ebac9
PA
516* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
517(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
518
fe6fbf8b 519* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 520is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
521
522* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
523including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
524and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 525
10665d76
JB
526* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
527accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
528more than one contiguous range of addresses.
529
7cc46491
DJ
530* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
531
d71340b8
DJ
532* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
533registers on PowerPC targets.
534
523c4513
DJ
535* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
536targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
537
a6b151f1
DJ
538* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
539commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
540
2d717e4f
DJ
541* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
542extended-remote mode.
543
24a836bd 544* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
545The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
546error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
547The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 548
d0c678e6
UW
549* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
550building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
551target architectures.
552
d64a946d
TJB
553* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
554Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
555now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
556stored in two consecutive float registers.
557
ee163bf5
VP
558* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
559breakpoints now.
560
b93b6ca7 561* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
562Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
563include:
b93b6ca7
JB
564 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
565 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
566 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
567 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
568 of an assignment
569 - Improved command completion in Ada
570 - Several bug fixes
571
d001be7a
DJ
572* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
573process.
574
a6b151f1
DJ
575* New commands
576
6d53d0af
JB
577set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
578show print frame-arguments
579 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
580 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
581
a6b151f1
DJ
582remote put
583remote get
584remote delete
585 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
586
587* New MI commands
588
589-target-file-put
590-target-file-get
591-target-file-delete
592 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
593
594* New remote packets
595
596vFile:open:
597vFile:close:
598vFile:pread:
599vFile:pwrite:
600vFile:unlink:
601 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 602
2d717e4f
DJ
603vAttach
604 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
605 mode.
606
607vRun
608 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
609
8d5f9c6f 610*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 611
19d378fc
MS
612* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
613bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
614Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
615
3a40aaa0
UW
616* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
617symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
618-Bsymbolic linker option.
619
a6ec25f2
BW
620* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
621recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
622is not supported.
623
6dd09645
JB
624* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
625frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
626
c9bb8148
DJ
627* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
62832-bit or 64-bit register values.
629
0d5de010
DJ
630* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
631
23181151
DJ
632* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
633target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
634a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
635
ea37ba09
DJ
636* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
637automatically displayed as character or string data.
638
639* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
640arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
641as strings.
e1f48ead 642
123dc839
DJ
643* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
644for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 645only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 646
05a4558a
DJ
647* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
648iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 649
7c963485
PA
650* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
651ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
652has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
653
b18be20d
DJ
654* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
655
0ca420ce
UW
656* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
657
31d99776
DJ
658* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
659layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
660segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
661
a4642986
MR
662* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
663immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
664
cfa9d6d9
DJ
665* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
666"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
667packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
668where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
669Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
670
671* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
672(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
673
674* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
675according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 676
c9bb8148
DJ
677* New commands
678
23776285
MR
679set remoteflow
680show remoteflow
681 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
682 when debugging using remote targets.
683
c9bb8148
DJ
684set mem inaccessible-by-default
685show mem inaccessible-by-default
686 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
687 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
688 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
689 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
690 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
691
692set breakpoint auto-hw
693show breakpoint auto-hw
694 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
695 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
696 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
697 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
698 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
699 including "next" and "finish".
700
0e420bd8
JB
701catch exception
702catch exception unhandled
703 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
704
705catch assert
706 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
707
f822c95b
DJ
708set sysroot
709show sysroot
710 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
711 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
712 an alias to "set sysroot".
713
83cc5c53
UW
714info spu
715 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
716 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
717 architecture.
718
bd372731
MK
719* New native configurations
720
721OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
722
23181151
DJ
723set tdesc filename
724unset tdesc filename
725show tdesc filename
726 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
727 not query the target for its built-in description.
728
c9bb8148
DJ
729* New targets
730
54fe9172 731OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 732MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 733Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 734
6dd09645
JB
735* New remote packets
736
737QPassSignals:
738 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
739 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
740
23181151
DJ
741qXfer:features:read:
742 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
743 features.
6dd09645 744
83cc5c53
UW
745qXfer:spu:read:
746qXfer:spu:write:
747 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
748 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
749
cfa9d6d9
DJ
750qXfer:libraries:read:
751 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
752 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
753 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
754 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
755
483367ee
DJ
756* Removed targets
757
758Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
759
d08950c4
UW
760alpha*-*-osf1*
761alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 762d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
763hppa*-*-hiux*
764i[34567]86-ncr-*
765i[34567]86-*-dgux*
766i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
767i[34567]86-*-netware*
768i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
769i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
770i[34567]86-*-sco*
771i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
772i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
773i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
774i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
775i[34567]86-*-unixware*
776i[34567]86-*-sysv*
777i[34567]86-*-isc*
778m68*-cisco*-*
779m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 780mips*-*-pe
483367ee 781rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 782sh*-*-pe
483367ee 783
7ce59000
DJ
784* Other removed features
785
786target abug
787target cpu32bug
788target est
789target rom68k
790
791 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
792
ea35711c
DJ
793target hms
794target e7000
795target sh3
796target sh3e
797
798 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
799 H8/300.
800
801target ocd
802
803 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
804 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
805 interfaces.
806
7ce59000
DJ
807DWARF 1 support
808
809 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
810 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
811
54d61198
DJ
812Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
813
814 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
815 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
816 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
817 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
818
ea35711c
DJ
819MIPS ".pdr" sections
820
821 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
822 in debugging information.
823
824Scheme support
825
826 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
827 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
828
1a69e1e4
DJ
829set mips stack-arg-size
830set mips saved-gpreg-size
831
832 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
833
6dd09645 834*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 835
ca3bf3bd
DJ
836* New targets
837
838Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 839Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 840
6aec2e11
DJ
841* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
842(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
843running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
844
845* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
846Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
847supported.
848
17218d91
DJ
849* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
850broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
851
9ebce043
DJ
852* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
853stub provides the required support.
854
7d3d3ece
DJ
855* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
856longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
857
4f8253f3
JB
858* New commands
859
860set substitute-path
861unset substitute-path
862show substitute-path
863 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
864 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
865 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
866 between compilation and debugging.
867
9fa66fd7
AS
868set trace-commands
869show trace-commands
870 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
871 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
872 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
873
1f5befc1
DJ
874* REMOVED features
875
876The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
877
2ec3381a
DJ
878Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
879an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
880
3d00d119
DJ
881The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
882
be2a5f71
DJ
883* New remote packets
884
885qSupported:
886 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
887 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
888 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
889 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
890 target.
891
0876f84a
DJ
892qXfer:auxv:read:
893 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
894 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
895
9ebce043
DJ
896qXfer:memory-map:read:
897 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
898 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
899
900vFlashErase:
901vFlashWrite:
902vFlashDone:
903 Erase and program a flash memory device.
904
0876f84a
DJ
905* Removed remote packets
906
907qPart:auxv:read:
908 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
909 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
910
e374b601 911*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 912
96309189
MS
913* New targets
914
915Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
916
917Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
918
53e5f3cf
AS
919* New commands
920
921init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
922 only if it doesn't already have a value.
923
ac264b3b
MS
924The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
925
926checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
927
928restart <n> Return the program state to a
929 previously saved state.
930
931info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
932
933delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
934
935set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
936 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
937
938info forks List forks of the user program that
939 are available to be debugged.
940
941fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
942 forks of the user program that are
943 available to be debugged.
944
945delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
946 that are available to be debugged (and
947 kill the forked process).
948
949detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
950 that are available to be debugged (and
951 allow the process to continue).
952
3950dc3f
NS
953* New architecture
954
955Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
956
0ea3f30e
DJ
957* Improved Windows host support
958
959GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
960native console support, and remote communications using either
961network sockets or serial ports.
962
f79daebb
GM
963* Improved Modula-2 language support
964
965GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
966basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
967pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
968printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
969written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
970GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
971
acab6ab2
MM
972* REMOVED features
973
974The ARM rdi-share module.
975
f4267320
DJ
976The Netware NLM debug server.
977
53e5f3cf 978*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 979
e0ecbda1
MK
980* New native configurations
981
02a677ac 982OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
983OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
984
d64a6579
KB
985* New targets
986
987Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
988
b33a6190
AS
989* New command line options
990
991--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
992--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
993 the child (debugged) program exited with.
994--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
995 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
996 specified multiple times and in conjunction
997 with the --command (-x) option.
998
11dced61
AC
999* Deprecated commands removed
1000
1001The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1002removed:
1003
1004 Command Replacement
1005 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1006 othernames set arm disassembler
1007 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1008 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1009 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1010 regs info registers
1011
6fe85783
MK
1012* New BSD user-level threads support
1013
1014It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1015library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1016configurations are:
1017
1018FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1019FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1020OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1021
1022Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1023are not yet supported.
1024
5260ca71
MS
1025* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1026(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1027
e84ecc99
AC
1028* REMOVED configurations and files
1029
1030VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1031Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1032National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1033
31e35378
JB
1034* New "set print array-indexes" command
1035
1036After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1037when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1038behavior.
1039
e85e5c83
MK
1040* VAX floating point support
1041
1042GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1043
d91e9901
AS
1044* User-defined command support
1045
1046In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1047to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1048section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1049
f2cb65ca
MC
1050*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1051
f47b1503
AS
1052* New command line option
1053
1054GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1055debugging.
1056
f2cb65ca
MC
1057* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1058
1059GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1060information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1061by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1062proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1063to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1064
d08c0230
AC
1065* Internationalization
1066
1067When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1068internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1069continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1070
117ea3cf
PH
1071* Ada
1072
1073Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1074implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1075into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1076
d08c0230
AC
1077* New native configurations
1078
1079GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1080
1081* Remote 'p' packet
1082
1083GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1084packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1085
1086* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1087
1088GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1089The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1090features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1091i386 application).
1092
1093GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1094compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1095continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1096configurations:
1097
1098hppa-*-hpux
1099ia64-*-aix
1100mips-*-irix*
1101*-*-lynx
1102mips-*-linux-gnu
1103sds protocol
1104xdr protocol
1105powerpc bdm protocol
1106
1107Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1108made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1109
1110* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1111
1112Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1113been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1114configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1115permanently REMOVED.
1116
1117h8300-*-*
1118mcore-*-*
1119mn10300-*-*
1120ns32k-*-*
1121sh64-*-*
1122v850-*-*
1123
ebb7c577
AC
1124*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1125
1126* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1127
1128When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1129heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1130been fixed.
1131
1132* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1133
1134When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1135fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1136IRIX long double values).
1137
1138* VAX and "next"
1139
1140A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1141command. This problem has been fixed.
1142
860660cb 1143*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1144
0dea2468
AC
1145* Fix for ``many threads''
1146
1147On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1148rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1149error message:
1150
1151 ptrace: No such process.
1152 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1153
1154This problem has been fixed.
1155
2c07db7a
AC
1156* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1157
1158Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1159GDB to dump core).
1160
c23968a2
JB
1161* New ``start'' command.
1162
1163This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1164
71009278
MK
1165* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1166
1167Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1168live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1169platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1170
1171FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1172FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1173NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1174NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1175NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1176OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1177OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1178OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1179OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1180
3c0b7db2
AC
1181* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1182
1183Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1184These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1185of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1186call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1187signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1188
73cc75f3
AC
1189Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1190features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1191include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1192
7243600a
BF
1193* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1194
6f606e1c
MK
1195* New native configurations
1196
97dc871c 1197GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1198OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1199OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1200OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1201OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1202NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1203OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1204
a1b461bf
AC
1205* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1206
1207GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1208The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1209including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1210migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1211compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1212work, was also included.
1213
1214GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1215module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1216
1217h8300-*-*
1218mcore-*-*
1219mn10300-*-*
1220ns32k-*-*
1221sh64-*-*
1222v850-*-*
1223xstormy16-*-*
1224
1225Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1226made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1227
3c7012f5
AC
1228* REMOVED configurations and files
1229
1230Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1231Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1232Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1233Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1234Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1235AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1236Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1237decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1238riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1239sonymips mips-sony-*
1240sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1241
e5fe55f7
AC
1242*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1243
1244* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1245
1246The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1247GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1248command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1249program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1250with GDB".
1251
1252* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1253
1254Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1255libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1256cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1257GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1258shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1259the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1260are created.
1261
1262Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1263
1264* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1265
1266The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1267non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1268compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1269
1270* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1271
1272Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1273wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1274
1275* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1276
1277The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1278permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1279systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1280
1281* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1282
1283Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1284has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1285
1286* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1287
1288GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1289its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1290panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1291
1292* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1293
1294When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1295by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1296not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1297
faae5abe 1298*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1299
9175c9a3
MC
1300* Removed --with-mmalloc
1301
1302Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1303conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1304
3cc87ec0
MK
1305* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1306
1307The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1308the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1309and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1310you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1311
f0424ef6
MK
1312* Revised SPARC target
1313
1314The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1315FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1316support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1317from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1318(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1319
59659be2
ILT
1320* New C++ demangler
1321
1322GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1323names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1324with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1325programs.
1326
9e08b29b
DJ
1327* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1328
1329GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1330arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1331encountered these.
1332
8dfe8985
DC
1333* C++ nested types and namespaces
1334
1335GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1336improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1337is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1338Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1339namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1340"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1341frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1342if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1343GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1344
cced5e27
MK
1345* New native configurations
1346
1347NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1348OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1349OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1350OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1351OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1352
b4b4b794
KI
1353* New debugging protocols
1354
1355M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1356
7989c619
AC
1357* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1358
1359The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1360and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1361tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1362
5994185b
AC
1363* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1364
1365Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1366been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1367configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1368permanently REMOVED.
1369
1370Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1371Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1372Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1373Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1374Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1375AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1376Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1377decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1378riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1379sonymips mips-sony-*
1380sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1381
0ddabb4c
AC
1382* REMOVED configurations and files
1383
1384SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1385SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1386Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1387Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1388H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1389HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1390HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1391HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1392PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1393386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1394Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1395 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1396 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1397SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1398SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1399Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1400Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1401
c7f1390e
DJ
1402*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1403
1fe43d45
AC
1404* Objective-C
1405
1406Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1407integrated into GDB.
1408
e6beb428
AC
1409* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1410
1411DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1412information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1413By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1414backtraces.
1415
1416The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1417have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1418DWARF 2 CFI support.
1419
1420* Hosted file I/O.
1421
1422GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1423file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1424remote protocol documentation for details.
1425
1426* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1427
1428All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1429architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1430to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1431ppc32 on ppc64).
1432
1433* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1434
1435GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1436per-thread variables.
1437
1438* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1439
1440GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1441GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1442
1443* Separate debug info.
1444
1445GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1446automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1447of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1448system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1449and optional debug files.
1450
1451* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1452
1453DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1454describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1455debugger.
1456
1457GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1458for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1459
1460* Java
1461
1462A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1463Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1464considered "useable".
1465
85f8f974
DJ
1466* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1467
1468The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1469commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1470kernel.
1471
0fac0b41
DJ
1472* GDB supports logging output to a file
1473
1474There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1475used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1476
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1477* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1478
1479The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1480disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1481command.
1482
e286caf2 1483* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1484
1485The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1486registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1487
d28f9cdf
DJ
1488* Profiling support
1489
1490A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1491be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1492session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1493"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1494data, for more informative profiling results.
1495
da0f9dcd
AC
1496* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1497
1498The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1499option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1500"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1501
1502Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1503removed.
1504
fb9b6b35
JJ
1505Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1506Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1507Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1508 in a subsequent -var-update.
1509
954a4db8
MK
1510* New native configurations.
1511
1512FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1513
6760f9e6
JB
1514* Multi-arched targets.
1515
b4263afa 1516HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1517Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1518
1b831c93
AC
1519* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1520
1521Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1522been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1523configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1524permanently REMOVED.
1525
8b0e5691 1526Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1527Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1528H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1529HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1530HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1531HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1532PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1533Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1534 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1535 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1536Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1537Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1538
5835abe7
NC
1539* REMOVED configurations and files
1540
1541V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1542Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1543IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1544i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1545i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1546i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1547HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1548 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1549 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1550Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1551Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1552Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1553OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1554I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1555
a094c6fb
AC
1556* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1557
1558The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1559the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1560context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1561address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1562The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1563
299ffc64 1564*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1565
46248966
AC
1566* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1567
1568When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1569`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1570in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1571library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1572shared libs like mad''.
1573
b9d14705 1574* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1575
b9d14705
DJ
1576Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1577the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1578arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1579powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1580
e0e9281e
JB
1581* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1582
1583GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1584and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1585they expand.
1586
dd73b9bb
AC
1587The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1588invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1589
1590The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1591macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1592
e0e9281e
JB
1593Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1594information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1595your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1596information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1597
2250ee0c
CV
1598* Multi-arched targets.
1599
6e3ba3b8
JT
1600DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1601DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1602NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1603National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1604Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1605Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1606
cd9bfe15 1607* New targets.
e33ce519 1608
456f8b9d
DB
1609Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1610
e33ce519 1611
da8ca43d
JT
1612* New native configurations
1613
1614Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1615SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1616MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1617UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1618
cd9bfe15
AC
1619* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1620
1621Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1622been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1623configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1624permanently REMOVED.
1625
92eb23c5 1626Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1627OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1628IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1629Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1630Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1631Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1632i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1633i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1634i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1635HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1636 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1637 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1638I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1639
db034ac5
AC
1640* OBSOLETE languages
1641
1642CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1643
cd9bfe15
AC
1644* REMOVED configurations and files
1645
1646AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1647A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1648AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1649AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1650AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1651
1652testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1653
20f01a46
DH
1654* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1655
1656This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1657commands. The default is 1024.
1658
a5941fbf
MK
1659* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1660
1661Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1662
89743e04
MS
1663* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1664
1665These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1666to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1667from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1668
9fb14e79
JB
1669* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1670
1671The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1672including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1673of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1674
2037aebb
AC
1675*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1676
1677* New targets.
1678
1679Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1680
1681* Bug fixes
1682
1683gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1684mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1685Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1686
1687gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1688dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1689Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1690
1691Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1692Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1693By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1694
1695i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1696avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1697By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1698
37057839 1699*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1700
1a703748
MS
1701* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1702
1703This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1704really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1705In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1706target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1707This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1708(notably embedded) targets.
1709
cefd4ef5
MS
1710* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1711
55241689
AC
1712This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1713process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1714GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1715hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1716
352ed7b4
MS
1717* New command line option
1718
1719GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1720
1721* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1722
1723There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1724command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1725a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1726be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1727open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1728issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1729a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1730it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1731GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1732is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1733
fe419ffc
RE
1734* Changes in ARM configurations.
1735
1736Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1737configuration is fully multi-arch.
1738
eb7cedd9
MK
1739* New native configurations
1740
fe419ffc 1741ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1742x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1743AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1744Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1745
c9f63e6b
CV
1746* New targets
1747
1748Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1749
9b4ff276
AC
1750* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1751
1752Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1753been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1754configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1755permanently REMOVED.
1756
1757AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1758A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1759AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1760AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1761AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1762
b4ceaee6 1763testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1764
e2caac18
AC
1765* REMOVED configurations and files
1766
1767TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1768WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1769PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1770PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1771PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1772Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1773Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1774 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1775SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1776Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1777Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1778ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1779Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1780
c2a727fa
TT
1781* Changes to command line processing
1782
1783The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1784for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1785
467d8519
TT
1786* Changes to key bindings
1787
1788There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1789
7072a954
AC
1790*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1791
1792Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1793
1794Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1795corrupted.
1796
1797Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1798
1799Numerous documentation fixes.
1800
1801Numerous testsuite fixes.
1802
34f47bc4 1803*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1804
1805* New native configurations
1806
1807Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1808x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1809MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1810MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1811ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1812s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1813
bf64bfd6
AC
1814* New targets
1815
def90278 1816Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1817CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1818UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1819
17e78a56 1820* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1821
1822x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1823Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1824Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1825 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1826TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1827WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1828Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1829PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1830PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1831PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1832SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1833Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1834ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1835Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1836
17e78a56
AC
1837stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1838kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1839
7fcca85b
AC
1840Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1841been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1842configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1843permanently REMOVED.
1844
a196c81c 1845* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1846
1847Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1848Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1849Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1850ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1851Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1852ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1853
6d6b80e5 1854* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1855
6d6b80e5 1856GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1857sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1858present.
1859
bf64bfd6
AC
1860* Other news:
1861
e23194cb
EZ
1862* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1863
1864* The MI enabled by default.
1865
1866The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1867revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1868engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1869using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1870which is now deprecated.
1871
1872* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1873
1874GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1875main features are supported:
1876
1877 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1878
1879 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1880 extension;
1881
1882 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1883
1884 - a Pascal expression parser.
1885
1886However, some important features are not yet supported.
1887
1888 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1889
1890 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1891
1892 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1893 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1894
1895 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1896
1897 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1898
1899* Changes in completion.
1900
1901Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1902to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1903users expect at the shell prompt.
1904
1905Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1906`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1907program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1908files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1909be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1910considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1911name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1912
1913`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1914
1915* New platform-independent commands:
1916
1917It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1918hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1919documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1920
1921* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1922
d7275149
MK
1923Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1924revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1925many threads as your system allows you to have.
1926
e23194cb
EZ
1927Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1928
d7275149
MK
1929Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1930multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1931
1932* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1933
1934Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1935
e23194cb
EZ
1936GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1937debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1938supported.)
1939
1940* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1941
1942Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1943breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1944implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1945put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1946and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1947registers.
1948
1949The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1950debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1951watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1952
1953* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1954
1955New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1956the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1957
1958New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1959display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1960IDT.
1961
1962New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1963from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1964New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1965a given linear address.
1966
1967GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1968program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1969which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1970
1971DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1972
6c56c069
EZ
1973It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1974
e23194cb
EZ
1975* Changes in documentation.
1976
1977All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1978Documentation License.
1979
1980Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1981manual.
1982
1983TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1984
1985Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1986manual.
1987
1988The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1989documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1990hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1991
5d6640b1
AC
1992* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1993
1994The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1995``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1996contents of this file.
1997
1a1d8446
AC
1998* gdba.el deleted
1999
2000GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2001
9debab2f 2002*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2003
c63ce875
EZ
2004* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2005
2006Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2007programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2008displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2009greater level of detail.
2010
2011* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2012
2013It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2014bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2015on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2016written.
2017
2018* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2019
2020The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2021necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2022machines ``out of the box''.
2023
2024The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2025possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2026signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2027would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2028interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2029
2030It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2031standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2032even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2033and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2034terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2035
2036The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2037enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2038also works.
2039
2040DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2041GDB.
2042
2043It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2044directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2045times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2046breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2047
ed9a39eb
JM
2048* New native configurations
2049
2050ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2051PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2052
7a292a7a
SS
2053* New targets
2054
96baa820 2055Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2056x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2057PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2058TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2059
085dd6e6
JM
2060* OBSOLETE configurations
2061
2062Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2063Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2064Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2065ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2066Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2067
9debab2f
AC
2068Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2069but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2070these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2071be permanently REMOVED.
2072
5330533d
SS
2073* Gould support removed
2074
2075Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2076
bc9e5bbf
AC
2077* New features for SVR4
2078
2079On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2080without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2081load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2082
2083* Many C++ enhancements
2084
2085C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2086in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2087
adf40b2e
JM
2088* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2089
2090A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2091sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2092with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2093``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2094
2095 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2096 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2097
43e526b9
JM
2098* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2099
2100A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2101expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2102instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2103
2104The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2105added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2106
96baa820
JM
2107* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2108
2109The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2110``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2111include ``set remote P-packet''.
2112
11cf8741
JM
2113* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2114
2115The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2116accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2117``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2118
7876dd43
DB
2119* ``apropos'' command added.
2120
2121The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2122documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2123try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2124
bc9e5bbf
AC
2125* New MI interface
2126
2127A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2128interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2129process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2130"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2131enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2132
2133 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2134
c906108c
SS
2135*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2136
2137* New native configurations
2138
2139HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2140HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2141M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2142
2143* New targets
2144
2145Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2146Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2147Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2148
2149* OBSOLETE configurations
2150
2151Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2152
2153Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2154but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2155these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2156be permanently REMOVED.
2157
2158* ANSI/ISO C
2159
2160As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2161buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2162containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2163use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2164available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2165configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2166information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2167already.
2168
2169* Readline 2.2
2170
2171GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2172
2173* set extension-language
2174
2175You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2176languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2177you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2178 set extension-language .c c++
2179The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2180and their associated languages.
2181
2182* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2183
2184When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2185you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2186PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2187
2188 set processor NAME
2189
2190sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2191following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2192
2193 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2194 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2195 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2196 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2197 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2198 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2199 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2200 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2201 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2202 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2203 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2204
2205At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2206special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2207registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2208only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2209
2210* HP-UX support
2211
2212Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2213more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2214library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2215support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2216for xdb and dbx commands.
2217
2218* Catchpoints
2219
2220HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2221generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2222to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2223
2224This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2225argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2226output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2227
2228* Debugging across forks
2229
2230On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2231in the inferior.
2232
2233* TUI
2234
2235HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2236it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2237configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2238
2239* GDB remote protocol additions
2240
2241A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2242Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2243fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2244allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2245
2246For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2247full 64-bit address. The command
2248
2249 set remoteaddresssize 32
2250
2251can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2252the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2253will be discarded.
2254
2255In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2256command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2257
2258 maint packet heythere
2259
2260sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2261disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2262time.
2263
2264The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2265target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2266downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2267
2268* Tracing can collect general expressions
2269
2270You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2271further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2272doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2273
2274* mask-address variable for Mips
2275
2276For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2277a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2278of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2279
2280* Higher serial baud rates
2281
2282GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2283230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2284to achieve all of these rates.)
2285
2286* i960 simulator
2287
2288The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2289builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2290
2291
2292*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2293
2294* New native configurations
2295
2296Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2297Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2298Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2299PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2300PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2301Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2302Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2303
2304* New targets
2305
2306Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2307Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2308Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2309Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2310MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2311MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2312MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2313Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2314Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2315Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2316NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2317
2318* New debugging protocols
2319
2320ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2321M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2322DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2323PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2324PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2325Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2326
2327* DWARF 2
2328
2329All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2330format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2331information.
2332
2333* Java frontend
2334
2335GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2336only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2337
2338* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2339
2340For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2341loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2342locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2343
2344* Live range splitting
2345
2346GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2347range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2348more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2349
2350* Hurd support
2351
2352GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2353updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2354
2355* ARM Thumb support
2356
2357GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2358instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2359instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2360accordingly.
2361
2362* MIPS16 support
2363
2364GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2365instruction set.
2366
2367* Overlay support
2368
2369GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2370linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2371will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2372control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2373additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2374in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2375
2376* info symbol
2377
2378The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2379the symbol at the specified address.
2380
2381* Trace support
2382
2383The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2384asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2385extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2386includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2387file tracepoint.c for more details.
2388
2389* MIPS simulator
2390
2391Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2392by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2393of most MIPS variants.
2394
2395* Sparc simulator
2396
2397Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2398by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2399Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2400
2401* set architecture
2402
2403For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2404basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2405architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2406the possible architectures.
2407
2408*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2409
2410* New native configurations
2411
2412Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2413M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2414PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2415PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2416PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2417RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2418
2419* New targets
2420
2421ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2422I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2423MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2424MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2425PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2426Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2427Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2428
2429* PowerPC simulator
2430
2431The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2432contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2433PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2434basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2435performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2436
2437* Solaris 2.5
2438
2439GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2440
2441* Windows 95/NT native
2442
2443GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2444To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2445which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2446Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2447ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2448
2449* dont-repeat command
2450
2451If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2452command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2453useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2454extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2455
2456* Send break instead of ^C
2457
2458The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2459rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2460GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2461
2462* Remote protocol timeout
2463
2464The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2465that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2466to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2467
2468* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2469
2470By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2471loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2472stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2473when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2474in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2475
2476Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2477/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2478automatically on hpux10.
2479
2480* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2481
2482Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2483
2484* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2485
2486When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2487may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2488the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2489every character. The default value is 1050.
2490
2491* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2492
2493If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2494a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2495replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2496details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2497remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2498to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2499
2500* Speedups for remote debugging
2501
2502GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2503the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2504and more efficient S-record downloading.
2505
2506* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2507
2508GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2509Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2510
2511*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2512
2513* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2514
2515The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2516can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2517
2518* Remote targets use caching
2519
2520Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2521remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2522it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2523debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2524off' turns the the data cache off.
2525
2526* Remote targets may have threads
2527
2528The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2529in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2530gdb/remote.c for details.
2531
2532* NetROM support
2533
2534If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2535support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2536acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2537write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2538support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2539another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2540sequence is something like
2541
2542 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2543 load <prog>
2544 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2545
2546* Macintosh host
2547
2548GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2549may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2550it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2551available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2552device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2553directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2554scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2555mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2556
2557* Autoconf
2558
2559GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2560but does simplify configuration and building.
2561
2562* hpux10
2563
2564GDB now supports hpux10.
2565
2566*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2567
2568* New native configurations
2569
2570x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2571x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2572NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2573Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2574
2575* New targets
2576
2577A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2578HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2579CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2580PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2581WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2582
2583* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2584
2585GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2586possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2587filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2588the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2589if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2590
2591* Arguments to user-defined commands
2592
2593User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2594Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2595trivial example:
2596define adder
2597 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2598
2599To execute the command use:
2600adder 1 2 3
2601
2602Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2603Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2604use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2605
2606* New `if' and `while' commands
2607
2608This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2609commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2610expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2611execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2612terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2613`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2614if the expression is zero.
2615
2616* Fortran source language mode
2617
2618GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2619Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2620variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2621with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2622Fortran compilers.
2623
2624* Better HPUX support
2625
2626Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2627running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2628processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2629for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2630that behavior do the following before running the program:
2631
2632 adb -w a.out
2633 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2634 control-d
2635
2636This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2637To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2638
2639 adb -w a.out
2640 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2641 control-d
2642
2643You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2644the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2645external linkage.
2646
2647GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2648HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2649
2650* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2651
2652You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2653commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2654current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2655"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2656associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2657configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2658
2659* New DOS host serial code
2660
2661This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2662no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2663a PC's serial port.
2664
2665*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2666
2667* New "complete" command
2668
2669This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2670were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2671
2672* Trailing space optional in prompt
2673
2674"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2675allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2676
2677* Breakpoint hit counts
2678
2679"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2680has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2681can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2682to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2683less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2684that breakpoint.
2685
2686* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2687
2688"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2689an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2690arrays actually contain only short strings.
2691
2692* Shared library breakpoints
2693
2694In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2695breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2696
2697* Hardware watchpoints
2698
2699There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2700targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2701
55241689 2702Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2703
2704* Annotations
2705
2706Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2707and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2708
2709* Improved Irix 5 support
2710
2711GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2712
2713* Improved HPPA support
2714
2715GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2716
2717* New native configurations
2718
2719Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2720HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2721Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2722RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2723
2724* New targets
2725
2726OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2727MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2728Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2729
2730* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2731
2732There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2733This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2734
2735* Fixes
2736
2737As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2738and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2739
2740*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2741
2742* Irix 5 is now supported
2743
2744* HPPA support
2745
2746GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2747to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2748GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2749of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2750can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2751
2752
2753*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2754
2755* User visible changes:
2756
2757* Remote Debugging
2758
2759The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2760target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2761debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2762integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2763debugging info for the mips target).
2764
2765* DEC Alpha native support
2766
2767GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2768debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2769work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2770Alpha-specific notes.
2771
2772* Preliminary thread implementation
2773
2774GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2775
2776* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2777
2778This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2779to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2780for details).
2781
2782* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2783
2784This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2785mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2786call methods, ...etc.
2787
2788*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2789
2790 * User visible changes:
2791
2792Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2793supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2794other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2795somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2796
2797Filename completion now works.
2798
2799When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2800arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2801addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2802
2803All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2804vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2805should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2806your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2807to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2808
2809 * DEC alpha support
2810
2811This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2812cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2813
2814
2815*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2816
2817 * Testsuite
2818
2819This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2820The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2821via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2822
2823 * C++ demangling
2824
2825'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2826emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2827Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2828disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2829use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2830
2831 * Simulators
2832
2833GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2834So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2835Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2836
2837 * New targets supported
2838
2839H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2840H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2841SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2842Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2843IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2844
2845Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2846version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2847GO32 memory extender.
2848
2849 * New remote protocols
2850
2851MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2852
2853 * New source languages supported
2854
2855This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2856used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2857into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2858
2859
2860*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2861
2862 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2863
2864GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2865version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2866University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2867compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2868format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2869(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2870
2871Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2872
2873 * Faster and better demangling
2874
2875We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2876demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2877character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2878only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2879This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2880increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2881symbol lookups.
2882
2883`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2884from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2885compiler does not actually implement.
2886
2887 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2888
2889In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2890inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2891recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2892very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2893The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2894circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2895fix.
2896
2897The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2898release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2899
2900 * Improved configure script
2901
2902The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2903you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2904host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2905done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2906
2907We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2908version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2909`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2910The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2911only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2912We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2913
2914 * Documentation improvements
2915
2916There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2917produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2918before submitting changes.
2919
2920The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2921M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2922`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2923you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2924a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2925
2926*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2927We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2928been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2929or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2930`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2931around this problem.
2932
2933 * New features
2934
2935GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2936the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2937`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2938the target program.
2939
2940The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2941how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2942
2943 * New native hosts supported
2944
2945HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2946386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2947
2948 * New targets supported
2949
2950AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2951
2952 * New file formats supported
2953
2954BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2955HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2956
2957 * Major bug fixes
2958
2959Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2960
2961We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2962printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2963
2964We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2965for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2966release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2967
2968You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2969will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2970
2971We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2972for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2973especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2974libraries.
2975
2976The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2977information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2978command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2979any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2980when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2981
2982 * Internal improvements
2983
2984GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2985debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2986
2987GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2988Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2989symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2990contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2991shared code that handles any of them.
2992
2993 * New command line options
2994
2995We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2996
2997 * Mmalloc licensing
2998
2999The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3000General Public License.
3001
3002*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3003
3004 * Host/native/target split
3005
3006GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3007hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3008target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3009local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3010ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3011
3012The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3013GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3014is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3015code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3016any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3017built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3018handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3019
3020GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3021It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3022plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3023
3024 * New hosts supported
3025
3026HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3027386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3028386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3029
3030 * New targets supported
3031
3032Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
303368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3034
3035 * New native hosts supported
3036
3037386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3038 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3039386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3040
3041 * New file formats supported
3042
3043BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3044supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3045format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3046
3047 * New commands
3048
3049`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3050`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3051These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3052
3053`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3054
3055You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3056scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3057prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3058executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3059
3060 * C++ improvements
3061
3062We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3063info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3064symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3065
3066Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3067
3068 * Major bug fixes
3069
3070The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3071fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3072by the compiler.
3073
3074We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3075support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3076
3077John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3078slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3079that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3080purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3081the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3082mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3083
3084Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3085about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3086completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3087we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3088
3089 * AMD 29k support
3090
3091A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3092specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3093calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3094usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3095in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3096
3097We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3098Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3099of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3100resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3101
3102 * Remote interfaces
3103
3104We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3105with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3106message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3107This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3108needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3109breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3110each instruction being stepped through.
3111
3112The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3113registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3114
3115There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3116find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3117Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3118processor with a serial port.
3119
3120 * Configuration
3121
3122Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3123`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3124supported, and what files each one uses.
3125
3126 * Library changes
3127
3128There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3129disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3130Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3131disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3132
3133The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3134Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3135can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3136grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3137
3138 * Documentation
3139
3140The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3141reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3142as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3143encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3144system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3145bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3146
3147And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3148
3149
3150*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3151
3152 * Better support for C++ function names
3153
3154GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3155names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3156(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3157single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3158Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3159
3160GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3161the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3162You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3163lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3164for the list of formats.
3165
3166 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3167
3168Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3169C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3170directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3171can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3172usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3173about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3174this problem.)
3175
3176 * New 'maintenance' command
3177
3178All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3179the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3180can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3181
3182 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3183 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3184 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3185 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3186 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3187 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3188
3189The following commands are new:
3190
3191 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3192 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3193 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3194
3195 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3196
3197We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3198(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3199be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3200read after argv processing.
3201
3202 * New hosts supported
3203
3204Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3205
55241689 3206GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3207
3208We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3209is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3210for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3211masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3212fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3213It costs extra.
3214
3215 * New targets supported
3216
3217Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3218
3219 * More smarts about finding #include files
3220
3221GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3222all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3223greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3224especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3225the one that contains your sources.
3226
3227We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3228breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3229try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3230
3231 * Interesting infernals change
3232
3233GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3234section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3235target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3236stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3237
3238 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3239
3240There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3241 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3242 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3243
3244See the ChangeLog for details.
3245
3246*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3247
3248 * New machines supported (host and target)
3249
3250IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3251
3252SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3253
3254 * New malloc package
3255
3256GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3257Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3258capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3259This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3260pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3261more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3262
3263 * info proc
3264
3265The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3266'help info proc' for details.
3267
3268 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3269
3270The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3271Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3272possible.
3273
3274 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3275
3276Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3277support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3278conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3279environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3280that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3281in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3282
3283 * Cross byte order fixes
3284
3285Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3286targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3287
3288 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3289
3290If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3291system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3292`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3293program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3294called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3295Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3296and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3297the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3298option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3299starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3300
3301You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3302the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3303information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3304slower, but makes future operations faster.
3305
3306The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3307build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3308A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3309use is:
3310
3311 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3312
3313The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3314It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3315shared across multiple host platforms.
3316
3317 * longjmp() handling
3318
3319GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3320siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3321all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3322platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3323
3324 * Solaris 2.0
3325
3326Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3327this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3328reading symbols.
3329
3330 * Bug fixes
3331
3332As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3333People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3334crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3335
3336*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3337
3338 * New machines supported (host and target)
3339
3340SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3341 (except core files)
3342BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3343Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3344
3345 * New machines supported (target)
3346
3347AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3348
3349 * C++ support
3350
3351GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3352The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3353per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3354
3355GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3356`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3357extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3358good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3359will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3360released.
3361
3362 * New features for SVR4
3363
3364GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3365shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3366only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3367
3368The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3369on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3370it prints the address mappings of the process.
3371
3372If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3373bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3374
3375 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3376
3377Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3378now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3379skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3380make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3381same code linked statically.
3382
3383 * New Getopt
3384
3385GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3386version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3387continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3388Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3389added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3390future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3391
3392 * Bugs fixed
3393
3394The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3395Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3396See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3397
3398
3399*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3400
3401 * New machines supported (host and target)
3402
3403Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3404NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3405Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3406
3407 * Almost SCO Unix support
3408
3409We had hoped to support:
3410SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3411(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3412that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3413about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3414
3415 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3416
3417GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3418debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3419is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3420send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3421reqired (if any).
3422
3423 * New Readline
3424
3425GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3426is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3427required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3428
3429 * Bugs fixed
3430
3431The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3432Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3433See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3434
3435 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3436
3437GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3438supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3439symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3440
3441Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3442mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3443debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3444mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3445version 2.
3446
3447Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3448really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3449line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3450variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3451situation somewhat.
3452
3453When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3454However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3455methods.
3456
3457We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3458DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3459encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3460
3461
3462*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3463
3464 * Improved configuration
3465
3466Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3467Porting BFD is simpler.
3468
3469 * Stepping improved
3470
3471The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3472of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3473in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3474function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3475
3476 * Bug fixing
3477
3478Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3479
3480 * New host supported (not target)
3481
3482Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3483
3484
3485*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3486
3487 * Multiple source language support
3488
3489GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3490It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3491and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3492language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3493You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3494`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3495
3496 * GDB and Modula-2
3497
3498GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3499currently under development at the State University of New York at
3500Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3501continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3502
3503Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3504debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3505symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3506
3507There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3508in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3509
3510 * set write on/off
3511
3512GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3513a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3514the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3515by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3516effect immediately.
3517
3518 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3519
3520When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3521shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3522The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3523examining core files.
3524
3525 * set listsize
3526
3527You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3528The default is 10.
3529
3530 * New machines supported (host and target)
3531
3532SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3533Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3534Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3535
3536 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3537
3538IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3539
3540 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3541
3542AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3543AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3544Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3545
3546 * New remote interfaces
3547
3548AMD 29000 Adapt
3549AMD 29000 Minimon
3550
3551
3552*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3553
3554 * New Facilities
3555
3556Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3557
3558Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3559target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3560is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3561remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3562remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3563also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3564using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3565stub on the target system.
3566
3567New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3568
3569GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3570library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3571object file types such as a.out and coff.
3572
3573There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3574refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3575
3576
3577 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3578
3579All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3580by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3581
3582For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3583``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3584Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3585
3586What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3587print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3588will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3589all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3590
3591confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3592 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3593 it is already running. Default is ON.
3594
3595editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3596 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3597 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3598 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3599 Default is ON.
3600
3601history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3602 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3603 or the value of the environment variable
3604 GDBHISTFILE.
3605
3606history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3607 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3608 HISTSIZE.
3609
3610history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3611 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3612 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3613
3614history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3615 history expansion will be performed on
3616 command line input. The default is OFF.
3617
3618radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3619 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3620 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3621
3622height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3623 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3624 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3625 variable TERM.
3626
3627width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3628 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3629 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3630 variable TERM.
3631
3632Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3633``set width'' instead.
3634
3635print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3636 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3637 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3638 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3639
3640print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3641 is OFF.
3642
3643print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3644 "raw" form if off.
3645
3646print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3647 like instructions.
3648
3649print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3650
3651
3652 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3653
3654The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3655new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3656are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3657window.
3658
3659
3660 * Support for Shared Libraries
3661
3662GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3663Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3664before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3665happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3666At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3667from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3668shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3669It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3670
3671sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3672 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3673 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3674
3675info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3676
3677
3678 * Watchpoints
3679
3680A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3681expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3682tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3683quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3684problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3685more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3686
3687watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3688
3689info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3690
3691delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3692disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3693enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3694
3695
3696 * C++ multiple inheritance
3697
3698When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3699for C++ programs.
3700
3701 * C++ exception handling
3702
3703Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3704ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3705the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3706handler's context).
3707
3708catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3709 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3710 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3711
3712info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3713 current stack frame.
3714
3715
3716 * Minor command changes
3717
3718The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3719command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3720is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3721
3722The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3723at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3724frames without printing.
3725
3726 * New directory command
3727
3728'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3729The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3730about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3731with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3732find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3733
3734 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3735
3736For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3737for more details.
3738
3739GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3740two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3741Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3742where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.767776 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.