* Makefile.in (mips-tdep.o): Update.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
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6* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
7recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
8is not supported.
9
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10* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
12
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13* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1432-bit or 64-bit register values.
15
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16* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
17
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18* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
19target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
20a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
21
e1f48ead 22* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
f8b73d13 23of numbers.
e1f48ead 24
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25* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
26for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
f8b73d13 27only ARM and MIPS).
123dc839 28
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29* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
30iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 31
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32* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
33ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
34has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
35
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36* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
37
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38* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
39
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40* New commands
41
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42set remoteflow
43show remoteflow
44 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
45 when debugging using remote targets.
46
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47set mem inaccessible-by-default
48show mem inaccessible-by-default
49 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
50 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
51 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
52 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
53 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
54
55set breakpoint auto-hw
56show breakpoint auto-hw
57 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
58 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
59 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
60 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
61 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
62 including "next" and "finish".
63
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64catch exception
65catch exception unhandled
66 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
67
68catch assert
69 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
70
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71set sysroot
72show sysroot
73 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
74 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
75 an alias to "set sysroot".
76
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77* New native configurations
78
79OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
80
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81set tdesc filename
82unset tdesc filename
83show tdesc filename
84 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
85 not query the target for its built-in description.
86
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87* New targets
88
54fe9172 89OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 90MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 91Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 92
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93* New remote packets
94
95QPassSignals:
96 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
97 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
98
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99qXfer:features:read:
100 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
101 features.
6dd09645 102
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103* Removed targets
104
105Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
106
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107alpha*-*-osf1*
108alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 109d10v-*-*
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110hppa*-*-hiux*
111i[34567]86-ncr-*
112i[34567]86-*-dgux*
113i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
114i[34567]86-*-netware*
115i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
116i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
117i[34567]86-*-sco*
118i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
119i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
120i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
121i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
122i[34567]86-*-unixware*
123i[34567]86-*-sysv*
124i[34567]86-*-isc*
125m68*-cisco*-*
126m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 127mips*-*-pe
483367ee 128rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 129sh*-*-pe
483367ee 130
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131* Other removed features
132
133target abug
134target cpu32bug
135target est
136target rom68k
137
138 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
139
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140target hms
141target e7000
142target sh3
143target sh3e
144
145 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
146 H8/300.
147
148target ocd
149
150 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
151 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
152 interfaces.
153
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154DWARF 1 support
155
156 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
157 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
158
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159Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
160
161 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
162 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
163 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
164 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
165
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166MIPS ".pdr" sections
167
168 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
169 in debugging information.
170
171Scheme support
172
173 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
174 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
175
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176set mips stack-arg-size
177set mips saved-gpreg-size
178
179 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
180
6dd09645 181*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 182
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183* New targets
184
185Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 186Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 187
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188* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
189(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
190running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
191
192* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
193Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
194supported.
195
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196* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
197broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
198
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199* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
200stub provides the required support.
201
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202* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
203longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
204
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205* New commands
206
207set substitute-path
208unset substitute-path
209show substitute-path
210 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
211 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
212 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
213 between compilation and debugging.
214
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215set trace-commands
216show trace-commands
217 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
218 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
219 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
220
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221* REMOVED features
222
223The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
224
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225Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
226an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
227
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228The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
229
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230* New remote packets
231
232qSupported:
233 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
234 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
235 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
236 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
237 target.
238
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239qXfer:auxv:read:
240 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
241 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
242
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243qXfer:memory-map:read:
244 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
245 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
246
247vFlashErase:
248vFlashWrite:
249vFlashDone:
250 Erase and program a flash memory device.
251
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252* Removed remote packets
253
254qPart:auxv:read:
255 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
256 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
257
e374b601 258*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 259
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MS
260* New targets
261
262Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
263
264Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
265
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266* New commands
267
268init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
269 only if it doesn't already have a value.
270
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271The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
272
273checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
274
275restart <n> Return the program state to a
276 previously saved state.
277
278info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
279
280delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
281
282set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
283 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
284
285info forks List forks of the user program that
286 are available to be debugged.
287
288fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
289 forks of the user program that are
290 available to be debugged.
291
292delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
293 that are available to be debugged (and
294 kill the forked process).
295
296detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
297 that are available to be debugged (and
298 allow the process to continue).
299
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300* New architecture
301
302Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
303
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304* Improved Windows host support
305
306GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
307native console support, and remote communications using either
308network sockets or serial ports.
309
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310* Improved Modula-2 language support
311
312GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
313basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
314pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
315printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
316written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
317GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
318
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319* REMOVED features
320
321The ARM rdi-share module.
322
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323The Netware NLM debug server.
324
53e5f3cf 325*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 326
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327* New native configurations
328
02a677ac 329OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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330OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
331
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332* New targets
333
334Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
335
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336* New command line options
337
338--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
339--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
340 the child (debugged) program exited with.
341--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
342 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
343 specified multiple times and in conjunction
344 with the --command (-x) option.
345
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346* Deprecated commands removed
347
348The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
349removed:
350
351 Command Replacement
352 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
353 othernames set arm disassembler
354 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
355 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
356 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
357 regs info registers
358
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359* New BSD user-level threads support
360
361It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
362library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
363configurations are:
364
365FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
366FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
367OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
368
369Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
370are not yet supported.
371
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372* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
373(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
374
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375* REMOVED configurations and files
376
377VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 378Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 379National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 380
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JB
381* New "set print array-indexes" command
382
383After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
384when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
385behavior.
386
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387* VAX floating point support
388
389GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
390
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391* User-defined command support
392
393In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
394to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
395section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
396
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397*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
398
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399* New command line option
400
401GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
402debugging.
403
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404* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
405
406GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
407information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
408by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
409proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
410to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 411
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412* Internationalization
413
414When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
415internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
416continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
417
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418* Ada
419
420Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
421implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
422into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
423
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424* New native configurations
425
426GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
427
428* Remote 'p' packet
429
430GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
431packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
432
433* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
434
435GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
436The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
437features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
438i386 application).
439
440GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
441compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
442continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
443configurations:
444
445hppa-*-hpux
446ia64-*-aix
447mips-*-irix*
448*-*-lynx
449mips-*-linux-gnu
450sds protocol
451xdr protocol
452powerpc bdm protocol
453
454Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
455made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
456
457* OBSOLETE configurations and files
458
459Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
460been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
461configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
462permanently REMOVED.
463
464h8300-*-*
465mcore-*-*
466mn10300-*-*
467ns32k-*-*
468sh64-*-*
469v850-*-*
470
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AC
471*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
472
473* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
474
475When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
476heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
477been fixed.
478
479* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
480
481When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
482fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
483IRIX long double values).
484
485* VAX and "next"
486
487A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
488command. This problem has been fixed.
489
860660cb 490*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 491
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492* Fix for ``many threads''
493
494On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
495rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
496error message:
497
498 ptrace: No such process.
499 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
500
501This problem has been fixed.
502
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503* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
504
505Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
506GDB to dump core).
507
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508* New ``start'' command.
509
510This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
511
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512* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
513
514Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
515live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
516platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
517
518FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
519FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
520NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
521NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
522NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
523OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
524OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
525OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
526OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
527
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528* Signal trampoline code overhauled
529
530Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
531These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
532of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
533call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
534signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
535
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536Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
537features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
538include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 539
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540* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
541
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542* New native configurations
543
97dc871c 544GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 545OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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546OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
547OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 548OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 549NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 550OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 551
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552* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
553
554GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
555The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
556including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
557migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
558compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
559work, was also included.
560
561GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
562module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
563
564h8300-*-*
565mcore-*-*
566mn10300-*-*
567ns32k-*-*
568sh64-*-*
569v850-*-*
570xstormy16-*-*
571
572Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
573made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
574
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575* REMOVED configurations and files
576
577Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
578Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
579Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
580Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
581Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
582AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
583Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
584decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
585riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
586sonymips mips-sony-*
587sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
588
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589*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
590
591* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
592
593The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
594GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
595command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
596program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
597with GDB".
598
599* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
600
601Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
602libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
603cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
604GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
605shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
606the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
607are created.
608
609Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
610
611* Fixed ISO-C build problems
612
613The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
614non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
615compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
616
617* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
618
619Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
620wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
621
622* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
623
624The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
625permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
626systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
627
628* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
629
630Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
631has been updated to use constant array sizes.
632
633* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
634
635GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
636its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
637panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
638
639* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
640
641When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
642by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
643not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
644
faae5abe 645*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 646
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647* Removed --with-mmalloc
648
649Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
650conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
651
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652* Changes in AMD64 configurations
653
654The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
655the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
656and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
657you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
658
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659* Revised SPARC target
660
661The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
662FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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663support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
664from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
665(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 666
59659be2
ILT
667* New C++ demangler
668
669GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
670names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
671with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
672programs.
673
9e08b29b
DJ
674* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
675
676GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
677arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
678encountered these.
679
8dfe8985
DC
680* C++ nested types and namespaces
681
682GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
683improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
684is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
685Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
686namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
687"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
688frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
689if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
690GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
691
cced5e27
MK
692* New native configurations
693
694NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 695OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 696OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
697OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
698OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 699
b4b4b794
KI
700* New debugging protocols
701
702M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
703
7989c619
AC
704* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
705
706The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
707and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
708tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
709
5994185b
AC
710* OBSOLETE configurations and files
711
712Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
713been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
714configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
715permanently REMOVED.
716
717Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
718Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
719Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
720Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
721Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
722AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
723Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
724decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
725riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
726sonymips mips-sony-*
727sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 728
0ddabb4c
AC
729* REMOVED configurations and files
730
731SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
732SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
733Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
734Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
735H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
736HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
737HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
738HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
739PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 740386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
741Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
742 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
743 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
744SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
745SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
746Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
747Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 748
c7f1390e
DJ
749*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
750
1fe43d45
AC
751* Objective-C
752
753Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
754integrated into GDB.
755
e6beb428
AC
756* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
757
758DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
759information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
760By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
761backtraces.
762
763The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
764have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
765DWARF 2 CFI support.
766
767* Hosted file I/O.
768
769GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
770file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
771remote protocol documentation for details.
772
773* All targets using the new architecture framework.
774
775All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
776architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
777to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
778ppc32 on ppc64).
779
780* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
781
782GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
783per-thread variables.
784
785* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
786
787GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
788GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
789
790* Separate debug info.
791
792GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
793automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
794of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
795system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
796and optional debug files.
797
798* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
799
800DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
801describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
802debugger.
803
804GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
805for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
806
807* Java
808
809A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
810Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
811considered "useable".
812
85f8f974
DJ
813* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
814
815The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
816commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
817kernel.
818
0fac0b41
DJ
819* GDB supports logging output to a file
820
821There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
822used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 823
6ad8ae5c
DJ
824* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
825
826The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
827disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
828command.
829
e286caf2 830* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
831
832The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
833registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
834
d28f9cdf
DJ
835* Profiling support
836
837A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
838be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
839session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
840"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
841data, for more informative profiling results.
842
da0f9dcd
AC
843* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
844
845The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
846option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 847"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
848
849Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
850removed.
851
fb9b6b35
JJ
852Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
853Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
854Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
855 in a subsequent -var-update.
856
954a4db8
MK
857* New native configurations.
858
859FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
860
6760f9e6
JB
861* Multi-arched targets.
862
b4263afa 863HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 864Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 865
1b831c93
AC
866* OBSOLETE configurations and files
867
868Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
869been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
870configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
871permanently REMOVED.
872
8b0e5691 873Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 874Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 875H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
876HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
877HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
878HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 879PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
880Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
881 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
882 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
883Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
884Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 885
5835abe7
NC
886* REMOVED configurations and files
887
888V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
889Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
890IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
891i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
892i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
893i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
894HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
895 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
896 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
897Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
898Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
899Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
900OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
901I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 902
a094c6fb
AC
903* MIPS $fp behavior changed
904
905The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
906the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
907context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
908address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
909The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
910
299ffc64 911*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 912
46248966
AC
913* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
914
915When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
916`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
917in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
918library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
919shared libs like mad''.
920
b9d14705 921* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 922
b9d14705
DJ
923Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
924the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
925arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
926powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 927
e0e9281e
JB
928* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
929
930GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
931and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
932they expand.
933
dd73b9bb
AC
934The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
935invocations in expression, and shows the result.
936
937The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
938macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
939
e0e9281e
JB
940Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
941information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
942your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
943information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
944
2250ee0c
CV
945* Multi-arched targets.
946
6e3ba3b8
JT
947DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
948DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 949NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 950National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
951Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
952Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 953
cd9bfe15 954* New targets.
e33ce519 955
456f8b9d
DB
956Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
957
e33ce519 958
da8ca43d
JT
959* New native configurations
960
961Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 962SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 963MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 964UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 965
cd9bfe15
AC
966* OBSOLETE configurations and files
967
968Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
969been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
970configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
971permanently REMOVED.
972
92eb23c5 973Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 974OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 975IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 976Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 977Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 978Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
979i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
980i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
981i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
982HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
983 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
984 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 985I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 986
db034ac5
AC
987* OBSOLETE languages
988
989CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
990
cd9bfe15
AC
991* REMOVED configurations and files
992
993AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
994A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
995AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
996AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
997AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
998
999testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1000
20f01a46
DH
1001* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1002
1003This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1004commands. The default is 1024.
1005
a5941fbf
MK
1006* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1007
1008Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1009
89743e04
MS
1010* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1011
1012These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1013to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1014from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1015
9fb14e79
JB
1016* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1017
1018The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1019including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1020of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1021
2037aebb
AC
1022*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1023
1024* New targets.
1025
1026Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1027
1028* Bug fixes
1029
1030gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1031mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1032Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1033
1034gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1035dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1036Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1037
1038Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1039Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1040By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1041
1042i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1043avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1044By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1045
37057839 1046*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1047
1a703748
MS
1048* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1049
1050This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1051really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1052In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1053target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1054This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1055(notably embedded) targets.
1056
cefd4ef5
MS
1057* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1058
55241689
AC
1059This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1060process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1061GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1062hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1063
352ed7b4
MS
1064* New command line option
1065
1066GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1067
1068* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1069
1070There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1071command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1072a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1073be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1074open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1075issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1076a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1077it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1078GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1079is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1080
fe419ffc
RE
1081* Changes in ARM configurations.
1082
1083Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1084configuration is fully multi-arch.
1085
eb7cedd9
MK
1086* New native configurations
1087
fe419ffc 1088ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1089x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1090AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1091Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1092
c9f63e6b
CV
1093* New targets
1094
1095Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1096
9b4ff276
AC
1097* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1098
1099Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1100been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1101configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1102permanently REMOVED.
1103
1104AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1105A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1106AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1107AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1108AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1109
b4ceaee6 1110testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1111
e2caac18
AC
1112* REMOVED configurations and files
1113
1114TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1115WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1116PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1117PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1118PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1119Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1120Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1121 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1122SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1123Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1124Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1125ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1126Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1127
c2a727fa
TT
1128* Changes to command line processing
1129
1130The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1131for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1132
467d8519
TT
1133* Changes to key bindings
1134
1135There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1136
7072a954
AC
1137*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1138
1139Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1140
1141Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1142corrupted.
1143
1144Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1145
1146Numerous documentation fixes.
1147
1148Numerous testsuite fixes.
1149
34f47bc4 1150*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1151
1152* New native configurations
1153
1154Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1155x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1156MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1157MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1158ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1159s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1160
bf64bfd6
AC
1161* New targets
1162
def90278 1163Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1164CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1165UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1166
17e78a56 1167* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1168
1169x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1170Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1171Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1172 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1173TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1174WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1175Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1176PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1177PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1178PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1179SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1180Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1181ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1182Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1183
17e78a56
AC
1184stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1185kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1186
7fcca85b
AC
1187Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1188been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1189configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1190permanently REMOVED.
1191
a196c81c 1192* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1193
1194Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1195Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1196Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1197ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1198Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1199ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1200
6d6b80e5 1201* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1202
6d6b80e5 1203GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1204sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1205present.
1206
bf64bfd6
AC
1207* Other news:
1208
e23194cb
EZ
1209* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1210
1211* The MI enabled by default.
1212
1213The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1214revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1215engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1216using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1217which is now deprecated.
1218
1219* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1220
1221GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1222main features are supported:
1223
1224 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1225
1226 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1227 extension;
1228
1229 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1230
1231 - a Pascal expression parser.
1232
1233However, some important features are not yet supported.
1234
1235 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1236
1237 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1238
1239 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1240 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1241
1242 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1243
1244 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1245
1246* Changes in completion.
1247
1248Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1249to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1250users expect at the shell prompt.
1251
1252Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1253`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1254program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1255files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1256be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1257considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1258name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1259
1260`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1261
1262* New platform-independent commands:
1263
1264It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1265hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1266documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1267
1268* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1269
d7275149
MK
1270Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1271revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1272many threads as your system allows you to have.
1273
e23194cb
EZ
1274Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1275
d7275149
MK
1276Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1277multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1278
1279* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1280
1281Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1282
e23194cb
EZ
1283GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1284debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1285supported.)
1286
1287* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1288
1289Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1290breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1291implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1292put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1293and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1294registers.
1295
1296The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1297debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1298watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1299
1300* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1301
1302New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1303the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1304
1305New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1306display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1307IDT.
1308
1309New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1310from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1311New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1312a given linear address.
1313
1314GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1315program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1316which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1317
1318DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1319
6c56c069
EZ
1320It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1321
e23194cb
EZ
1322* Changes in documentation.
1323
1324All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1325Documentation License.
1326
1327Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1328manual.
1329
1330TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1331
1332Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1333manual.
1334
1335The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1336documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1337hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1338
5d6640b1
AC
1339* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1340
1341The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1342``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1343contents of this file.
1344
1a1d8446
AC
1345* gdba.el deleted
1346
1347GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1348
9debab2f 1349*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1350
c63ce875
EZ
1351* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1352
1353Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1354programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1355displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1356greater level of detail.
1357
1358* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1359
1360It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1361bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1362on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1363written.
1364
1365* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1366
1367The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1368necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1369machines ``out of the box''.
1370
1371The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1372possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1373signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1374would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1375interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1376
1377It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1378standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1379even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1380and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1381terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1382
1383The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1384enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1385also works.
1386
1387DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1388GDB.
1389
1390It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1391directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1392times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1393breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1394
ed9a39eb
JM
1395* New native configurations
1396
1397ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1398PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1399
7a292a7a
SS
1400* New targets
1401
96baa820 1402Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1403x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1404PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1405TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1406
085dd6e6
JM
1407* OBSOLETE configurations
1408
1409Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1410Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1411Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1412ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1413Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1414
9debab2f
AC
1415Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1416but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1417these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1418be permanently REMOVED.
1419
5330533d
SS
1420* Gould support removed
1421
1422Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1423
bc9e5bbf
AC
1424* New features for SVR4
1425
1426On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1427without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1428load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1429
1430* Many C++ enhancements
1431
1432C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1433in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1434
adf40b2e
JM
1435* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1436
1437A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1438sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1439with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1440``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1441
1442 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1443 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1444
43e526b9
JM
1445* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1446
1447A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1448expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1449instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1450
1451The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1452added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1453
96baa820
JM
1454* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1455
1456The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1457``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1458include ``set remote P-packet''.
1459
11cf8741
JM
1460* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1461
1462The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1463accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1464``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1465
7876dd43
DB
1466* ``apropos'' command added.
1467
1468The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1469documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1470try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1471
bc9e5bbf
AC
1472* New MI interface
1473
1474A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1475interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1476process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1477"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1478enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1479
1480 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1481
c906108c
SS
1482*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1483
1484* New native configurations
1485
1486HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1487HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1488M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1489
1490* New targets
1491
1492Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1493Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1494Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1495
1496* OBSOLETE configurations
1497
1498Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1499
1500Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1501but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1502these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1503be permanently REMOVED.
1504
1505* ANSI/ISO C
1506
1507As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1508buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1509containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1510use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1511available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1512configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1513information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1514already.
1515
1516* Readline 2.2
1517
1518GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1519
1520* set extension-language
1521
1522You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1523languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1524you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1525 set extension-language .c c++
1526The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1527and their associated languages.
1528
1529* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1530
1531When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1532you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1533PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1534
1535 set processor NAME
1536
1537sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1538following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1539
1540 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1541 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1542 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1543 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1544 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1545 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1546 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1547 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1548 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1549 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1550 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1551
1552At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1553special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1554registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1555only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1556
1557* HP-UX support
1558
1559Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1560more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1561library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1562support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1563for xdb and dbx commands.
1564
1565* Catchpoints
1566
1567HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1568generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1569to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1570
1571This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1572argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1573output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1574
1575* Debugging across forks
1576
1577On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1578in the inferior.
1579
1580* TUI
1581
1582HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1583it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1584configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1585
1586* GDB remote protocol additions
1587
1588A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1589Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1590fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1591allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1592
1593For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1594full 64-bit address. The command
1595
1596 set remoteaddresssize 32
1597
1598can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1599the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1600will be discarded.
1601
1602In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1603command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1604
1605 maint packet heythere
1606
1607sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1608disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1609time.
1610
1611The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1612target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1613downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1614
1615* Tracing can collect general expressions
1616
1617You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1618further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1619doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1620
1621* mask-address variable for Mips
1622
1623For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1624a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1625of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1626
1627* Higher serial baud rates
1628
1629GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1630230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1631to achieve all of these rates.)
1632
1633* i960 simulator
1634
1635The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1636builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1637
1638
1639*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1640
1641* New native configurations
1642
1643Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1644Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1645Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1646PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1647PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1648Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1649Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1650
1651* New targets
1652
1653Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1654Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1655Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1656Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1657MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1658MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1659MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1660Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1661Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1662Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1663NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1664
1665* New debugging protocols
1666
1667ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1668M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1669DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1670PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1671PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1672Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1673
1674* DWARF 2
1675
1676All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1677format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1678information.
1679
1680* Java frontend
1681
1682GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1683only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1684
1685* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1686
1687For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1688loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1689locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1690
1691* Live range splitting
1692
1693GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1694range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1695more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1696
1697* Hurd support
1698
1699GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1700updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1701
1702* ARM Thumb support
1703
1704GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1705instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1706instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1707accordingly.
1708
1709* MIPS16 support
1710
1711GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1712instruction set.
1713
1714* Overlay support
1715
1716GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1717linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1718will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1719control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1720additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1721in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1722
1723* info symbol
1724
1725The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1726the symbol at the specified address.
1727
1728* Trace support
1729
1730The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1731asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1732extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1733includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1734file tracepoint.c for more details.
1735
1736* MIPS simulator
1737
1738Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1739by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1740of most MIPS variants.
1741
1742* Sparc simulator
1743
1744Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1745by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1746Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1747
1748* set architecture
1749
1750For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1751basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1752architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1753the possible architectures.
1754
1755*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1756
1757* New native configurations
1758
1759Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1760M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1761PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1762PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1763PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1764RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1765
1766* New targets
1767
1768ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1769I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1770MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1771MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1772PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1773Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1774Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1775
1776* PowerPC simulator
1777
1778The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1779contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1780PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1781basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1782performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1783
1784* Solaris 2.5
1785
1786GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1787
1788* Windows 95/NT native
1789
1790GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1791To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1792which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1793Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1794ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1795
1796* dont-repeat command
1797
1798If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1799command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1800useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1801extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1802
1803* Send break instead of ^C
1804
1805The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1806rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1807GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1808
1809* Remote protocol timeout
1810
1811The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1812that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1813to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1814
1815* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1816
1817By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1818loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1819stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1820when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1821in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1822
1823Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1824/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1825automatically on hpux10.
1826
1827* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1828
1829Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1830
1831* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1832
1833When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1834may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1835the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1836every character. The default value is 1050.
1837
1838* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1839
1840If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1841a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1842replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1843details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1844remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1845to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1846
1847* Speedups for remote debugging
1848
1849GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1850the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1851and more efficient S-record downloading.
1852
1853* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1854
1855GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1856Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1857
1858*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1859
1860* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1861
1862The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1863can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1864
1865* Remote targets use caching
1866
1867Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1868remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1869it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1870debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1871off' turns the the data cache off.
1872
1873* Remote targets may have threads
1874
1875The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1876in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1877gdb/remote.c for details.
1878
1879* NetROM support
1880
1881If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1882support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1883acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1884write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1885support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1886another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1887sequence is something like
1888
1889 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1890 load <prog>
1891 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1892
1893* Macintosh host
1894
1895GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1896may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1897it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1898available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1899device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1900directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1901scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1902mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1903
1904* Autoconf
1905
1906GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1907but does simplify configuration and building.
1908
1909* hpux10
1910
1911GDB now supports hpux10.
1912
1913*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1914
1915* New native configurations
1916
1917x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1918x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1919NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1920Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1921
1922* New targets
1923
1924A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1925HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1926CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1927PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1928WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1929
1930* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1931
1932GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1933possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1934filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1935the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1936if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1937
1938* Arguments to user-defined commands
1939
1940User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1941Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1942trivial example:
1943define adder
1944 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1945
1946To execute the command use:
1947adder 1 2 3
1948
1949Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1950Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1951use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1952
1953* New `if' and `while' commands
1954
1955This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1956commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1957expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1958execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1959terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1960`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1961if the expression is zero.
1962
1963* Fortran source language mode
1964
1965GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1966Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1967variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1968with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1969Fortran compilers.
1970
1971* Better HPUX support
1972
1973Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1974running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1975processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1976for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1977that behavior do the following before running the program:
1978
1979 adb -w a.out
1980 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1981 control-d
1982
1983This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1984To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1985
1986 adb -w a.out
1987 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1988 control-d
1989
1990You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1991the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1992external linkage.
1993
1994GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1995HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1996
1997* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1998
1999You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2000commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2001current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2002"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2003associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2004configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2005
2006* New DOS host serial code
2007
2008This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2009no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2010a PC's serial port.
2011
2012*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2013
2014* New "complete" command
2015
2016This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2017were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2018
2019* Trailing space optional in prompt
2020
2021"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2022allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2023
2024* Breakpoint hit counts
2025
2026"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2027has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2028can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2029to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2030less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2031that breakpoint.
2032
2033* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2034
2035"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2036an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2037arrays actually contain only short strings.
2038
2039* Shared library breakpoints
2040
2041In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2042breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2043
2044* Hardware watchpoints
2045
2046There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2047targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2048
55241689 2049Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2050
2051* Annotations
2052
2053Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2054and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2055
2056* Improved Irix 5 support
2057
2058GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2059
2060* Improved HPPA support
2061
2062GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2063
2064* New native configurations
2065
2066Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2067HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2068Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2069RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2070
2071* New targets
2072
2073OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2074MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2075Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2076
2077* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2078
2079There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2080This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2081
2082* Fixes
2083
2084As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2085and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2086
2087*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2088
2089* Irix 5 is now supported
2090
2091* HPPA support
2092
2093GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2094to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2095GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2096of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2097can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2098
2099
2100*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2101
2102* User visible changes:
2103
2104* Remote Debugging
2105
2106The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2107target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2108debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2109integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2110debugging info for the mips target).
2111
2112* DEC Alpha native support
2113
2114GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2115debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2116work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2117Alpha-specific notes.
2118
2119* Preliminary thread implementation
2120
2121GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2122
2123* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2124
2125This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2126to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2127for details).
2128
2129* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2130
2131This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2132mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2133call methods, ...etc.
2134
2135*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2136
2137 * User visible changes:
2138
2139Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2140supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2141other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2142somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2143
2144Filename completion now works.
2145
2146When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2147arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2148addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2149
2150All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2151vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2152should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2153your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2154to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2155
2156 * DEC alpha support
2157
2158This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2159cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2160
2161
2162*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2163
2164 * Testsuite
2165
2166This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2167The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2168via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2169
2170 * C++ demangling
2171
2172'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2173emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2174Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2175disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2176use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2177
2178 * Simulators
2179
2180GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2181So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2182Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2183
2184 * New targets supported
2185
2186H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2187H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2188SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2189Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2190IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2191
2192Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2193version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2194GO32 memory extender.
2195
2196 * New remote protocols
2197
2198MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2199
2200 * New source languages supported
2201
2202This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2203used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2204into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2205
2206
2207*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2208
2209 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2210
2211GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2212version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2213University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2214compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2215format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2216(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2217
2218Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2219
2220 * Faster and better demangling
2221
2222We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2223demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2224character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2225only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2226This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2227increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2228symbol lookups.
2229
2230`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2231from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2232compiler does not actually implement.
2233
2234 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2235
2236In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2237inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2238recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2239very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2240The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2241circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2242fix.
2243
2244The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2245release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2246
2247 * Improved configure script
2248
2249The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2250you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2251host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2252done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2253
2254We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2255version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2256`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2257The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2258only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2259We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2260
2261 * Documentation improvements
2262
2263There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2264produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2265before submitting changes.
2266
2267The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2268M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2269`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2270you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2271a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2272
2273*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2274We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2275been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2276or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2277`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2278around this problem.
2279
2280 * New features
2281
2282GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2283the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2284`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2285the target program.
2286
2287The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2288how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2289
2290 * New native hosts supported
2291
2292HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2293386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2294
2295 * New targets supported
2296
2297AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2298
2299 * New file formats supported
2300
2301BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2302HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2303
2304 * Major bug fixes
2305
2306Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2307
2308We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2309printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2310
2311We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2312for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2313release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2314
2315You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2316will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2317
2318We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2319for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2320especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2321libraries.
2322
2323The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2324information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2325command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2326any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2327when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2328
2329 * Internal improvements
2330
2331GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2332debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2333
2334GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2335Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2336symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2337contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2338shared code that handles any of them.
2339
2340 * New command line options
2341
2342We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2343
2344 * Mmalloc licensing
2345
2346The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2347General Public License.
2348
2349*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2350
2351 * Host/native/target split
2352
2353GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2354hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2355target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2356local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2357ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2358
2359The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2360GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2361is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2362code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2363any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2364built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2365handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2366
2367GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2368It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2369plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2370
2371 * New hosts supported
2372
2373HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2374386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2375386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2376
2377 * New targets supported
2378
2379Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
238068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2381
2382 * New native hosts supported
2383
2384386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2385 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2386386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2387
2388 * New file formats supported
2389
2390BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2391supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2392format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2393
2394 * New commands
2395
2396`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2397`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2398These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2399
2400`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2401
2402You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2403scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2404prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2405executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2406
2407 * C++ improvements
2408
2409We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2410info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2411symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2412
2413Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2414
2415 * Major bug fixes
2416
2417The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2418fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2419by the compiler.
2420
2421We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2422support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2423
2424John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2425slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2426that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2427purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2428the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2429mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2430
2431Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2432about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2433completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2434we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2435
2436 * AMD 29k support
2437
2438A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2439specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2440calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2441usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2442in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2443
2444We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2445Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2446of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2447resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2448
2449 * Remote interfaces
2450
2451We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2452with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2453message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2454This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2455needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2456breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2457each instruction being stepped through.
2458
2459The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2460registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2461
2462There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2463find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2464Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2465processor with a serial port.
2466
2467 * Configuration
2468
2469Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2470`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2471supported, and what files each one uses.
2472
2473 * Library changes
2474
2475There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2476disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2477Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2478disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2479
2480The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2481Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2482can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2483grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2484
2485 * Documentation
2486
2487The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2488reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2489as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2490encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2491system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2492bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2493
2494And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2495
2496
2497*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2498
2499 * Better support for C++ function names
2500
2501GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2502names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2503(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2504single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2505Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2506
2507GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2508the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2509You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2510lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2511for the list of formats.
2512
2513 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2514
2515Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2516C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2517directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2518can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2519usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2520about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2521this problem.)
2522
2523 * New 'maintenance' command
2524
2525All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2526the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2527can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2528
2529 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2530 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2531 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2532 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2533 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2534 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2535
2536The following commands are new:
2537
2538 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2539 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2540 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2541
2542 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2543
2544We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2545(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2546be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2547read after argv processing.
2548
2549 * New hosts supported
2550
2551Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2552
55241689 2553GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2554
2555We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2556is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2557for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2558masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2559fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2560It costs extra.
2561
2562 * New targets supported
2563
2564Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2565
2566 * More smarts about finding #include files
2567
2568GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2569all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2570greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2571especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2572the one that contains your sources.
2573
2574We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2575breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2576try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2577
2578 * Interesting infernals change
2579
2580GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2581section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2582target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2583stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2584
2585 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2586
2587There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2588 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2589 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2590
2591See the ChangeLog for details.
2592
2593*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2594
2595 * New machines supported (host and target)
2596
2597IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2598
2599SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2600
2601 * New malloc package
2602
2603GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2604Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2605capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2606This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2607pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2608more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2609
2610 * info proc
2611
2612The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2613'help info proc' for details.
2614
2615 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2616
2617The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2618Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2619possible.
2620
2621 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2622
2623Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2624support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2625conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2626environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2627that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2628in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2629
2630 * Cross byte order fixes
2631
2632Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2633targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2634
2635 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2636
2637If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2638system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2639`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2640program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2641called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2642Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2643and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2644the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2645option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2646starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2647
2648You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2649the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2650information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2651slower, but makes future operations faster.
2652
2653The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2654build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2655A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2656use is:
2657
2658 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2659
2660The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2661It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2662shared across multiple host platforms.
2663
2664 * longjmp() handling
2665
2666GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2667siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2668all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2669platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2670
2671 * Solaris 2.0
2672
2673Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2674this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2675reading symbols.
2676
2677 * Bug fixes
2678
2679As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2680People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2681crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2682
2683*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2684
2685 * New machines supported (host and target)
2686
2687SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2688 (except core files)
2689BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2690Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2691
2692 * New machines supported (target)
2693
2694AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2695
2696 * C++ support
2697
2698GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2699The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2700per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2701
2702GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2703`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2704extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2705good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2706will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2707released.
2708
2709 * New features for SVR4
2710
2711GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2712shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2713only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2714
2715The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2716on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2717it prints the address mappings of the process.
2718
2719If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2720bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2721
2722 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2723
2724Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2725now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2726skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2727make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2728same code linked statically.
2729
2730 * New Getopt
2731
2732GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2733version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2734continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2735Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2736added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2737future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2738
2739 * Bugs fixed
2740
2741The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2742Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2743See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2744
2745
2746*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2747
2748 * New machines supported (host and target)
2749
2750Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2751NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2752Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2753
2754 * Almost SCO Unix support
2755
2756We had hoped to support:
2757SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2758(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2759that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2760about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2761
2762 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2763
2764GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2765debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2766is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2767send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2768reqired (if any).
2769
2770 * New Readline
2771
2772GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2773is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2774required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2775
2776 * Bugs fixed
2777
2778The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2779Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2780See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2781
2782 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2783
2784GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2785supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2786symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2787
2788Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2789mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2790debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2791mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2792version 2.
2793
2794Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2795really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2796line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2797variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2798situation somewhat.
2799
2800When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2801However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2802methods.
2803
2804We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2805DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2806encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2807
2808
2809*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2810
2811 * Improved configuration
2812
2813Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2814Porting BFD is simpler.
2815
2816 * Stepping improved
2817
2818The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2819of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2820in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2821function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2822
2823 * Bug fixing
2824
2825Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2826
2827 * New host supported (not target)
2828
2829Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2830
2831
2832*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2833
2834 * Multiple source language support
2835
2836GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2837It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2838and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2839language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2840You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2841`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2842
2843 * GDB and Modula-2
2844
2845GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2846currently under development at the State University of New York at
2847Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2848continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2849
2850Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2851debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2852symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2853
2854There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2855in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2856
2857 * set write on/off
2858
2859GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2860a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2861the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2862by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2863effect immediately.
2864
2865 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2866
2867When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2868shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2869The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2870examining core files.
2871
2872 * set listsize
2873
2874You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2875The default is 10.
2876
2877 * New machines supported (host and target)
2878
2879SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2880Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2881Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2882
2883 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2884
2885IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2886
2887 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2888
2889AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2890AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2891Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2892
2893 * New remote interfaces
2894
2895AMD 29000 Adapt
2896AMD 29000 Minimon
2897
2898
2899*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2900
2901 * New Facilities
2902
2903Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2904
2905Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2906target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2907is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2908remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2909remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2910also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2911using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2912stub on the target system.
2913
2914New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2915
2916GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2917library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2918object file types such as a.out and coff.
2919
2920There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2921refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2922
2923
2924 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2925
2926All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2927by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2928
2929For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2930``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2931Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2932
2933What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2934print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2935will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2936all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2937
2938confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2939 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2940 it is already running. Default is ON.
2941
2942editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2943 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2944 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2945 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2946 Default is ON.
2947
2948history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2949 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2950 or the value of the environment variable
2951 GDBHISTFILE.
2952
2953history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2954 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2955 HISTSIZE.
2956
2957history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2958 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2959 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2960
2961history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2962 history expansion will be performed on
2963 command line input. The default is OFF.
2964
2965radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2966 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2967 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2968
2969height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2970 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2971 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2972 variable TERM.
2973
2974width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2975 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2976 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2977 variable TERM.
2978
2979Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2980``set width'' instead.
2981
2982print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2983 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2984 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2985 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2986
2987print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2988 is OFF.
2989
2990print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2991 "raw" form if off.
2992
2993print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2994 like instructions.
2995
2996print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2997
2998
2999 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3000
3001The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3002new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3003are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3004window.
3005
3006
3007 * Support for Shared Libraries
3008
3009GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3010Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3011before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3012happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3013At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3014from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3015shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3016It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3017
3018sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3019 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3020 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3021
3022info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3023
3024
3025 * Watchpoints
3026
3027A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3028expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3029tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3030quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3031problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3032more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3033
3034watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3035
3036info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3037
3038delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3039disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3040enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3041
3042
3043 * C++ multiple inheritance
3044
3045When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3046for C++ programs.
3047
3048 * C++ exception handling
3049
3050Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3051ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3052the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3053handler's context).
3054
3055catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3056 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3057 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3058
3059info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3060 current stack frame.
3061
3062
3063 * Minor command changes
3064
3065The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3066command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3067is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3068
3069The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3070at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3071frames without printing.
3072
3073 * New directory command
3074
3075'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3076The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3077about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3078with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3079find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3080
3081 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3082
3083For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3084for more details.
3085
3086GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3087two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3088Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3089where the program that you are debugging will run.
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