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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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CommitLineData
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4*** Changes since GDB 6.7
5
6* New commands
7
8set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
9show print frame-arguments
10 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
11 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
12
13* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
14(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
15
16* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
17is resolved.
18
19* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
20including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
21and in inlined functions.
22
23* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
24accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
25more than one contiguous range of addresses.
26
27* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
28
29* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
30registers on PowerPC targets.
31
32* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
33targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
34
35* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
36commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
37
38* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
39 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
40 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
41 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
42
43* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
44building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
45target architectures.
46
47* New commands
48
49remote put
50remote get
51remote delete
52 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
53
54* New MI commands
55
56-target-file-put
57-target-file-get
58-target-file-delete
59 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
60
61* New remote packets
62
63vFile:open:
64vFile:close:
65vFile:pread:
66vFile:pwrite:
67vFile:unlink:
68 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
69
70*** Changes in GDB 6.7
71
72* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
73bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
74Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
75
76* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
77symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
78-Bsymbolic linker option.
79
80* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
81recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
82is not supported.
83
84* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
85frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
86
87* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
8832-bit or 64-bit register values.
89
90* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
91
92* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
93target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
94a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
95
96* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
97automatically displayed as character or string data.
98
99* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
100arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
101as strings.
102
103* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
104for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
105only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
106
107* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
108iWMMXt coprocessor.
109
110* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
111ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
112has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
113
114* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
115
116* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
117
118* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
119layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
120segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
121
122* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
123immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
124
125* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
126"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
127packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
128where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
129Windows and SymbianOS).
130
131* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
132(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
133
134* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
135according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
136
137* New commands
138
139set remoteflow
140show remoteflow
141 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
142 when debugging using remote targets.
143
144set mem inaccessible-by-default
145show mem inaccessible-by-default
146 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
147 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
148 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
149 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
150 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
151
152set breakpoint auto-hw
153show breakpoint auto-hw
154 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
155 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
156 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
157 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
158 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
159 including "next" and "finish".
160
161catch exception
162catch exception unhandled
163 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
164
165catch assert
166 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
167
168set sysroot
169show sysroot
170 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
171 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
172 an alias to "set sysroot".
173
174info spu
175 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
176 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
177 architecture.
178
179* New native configurations
180
181OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
182
183set tdesc filename
184unset tdesc filename
185show tdesc filename
186 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
187 not query the target for its built-in description.
188
189* New targets
190
191OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
192MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
193Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
194
195* New remote packets
196
197QPassSignals:
198 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
199 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
200
201qXfer:features:read:
202 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
203 features.
204
205qXfer:spu:read:
206qXfer:spu:write:
207 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
208 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
209
210qXfer:libraries:read:
211 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
212 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
213 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
214 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
215
216* Removed targets
217
218Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
219
220alpha*-*-osf1*
221alpha*-*-osf2*
222d10v-*-*
223hppa*-*-hiux*
224i[34567]86-ncr-*
225i[34567]86-*-dgux*
226i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
227i[34567]86-*-netware*
228i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
229i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
230i[34567]86-*-sco*
231i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
232i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
233i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
234i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
235i[34567]86-*-unixware*
236i[34567]86-*-sysv*
237i[34567]86-*-isc*
238m68*-cisco*-*
239m68*-tandem-*
240mips*-*-pe
241rs6000-*-lynxos*
242sh*-*-pe
243
244* Other removed features
245
246target abug
247target cpu32bug
248target est
249target rom68k
250
251 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
252
253target hms
254target e7000
255target sh3
256target sh3e
257
258 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
259 H8/300.
260
261target ocd
262
263 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
264 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
265 interfaces.
266
267DWARF 1 support
268
269 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
270 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
271
272Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
273
274 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
275 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
276 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
277 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
278
279MIPS ".pdr" sections
280
281 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
282 in debugging information.
283
284Scheme support
285
286 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
287 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
288
289set mips stack-arg-size
290set mips saved-gpreg-size
291
292 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
293
294*** Changes in GDB 6.6
295
296* New targets
297
298Xtensa xtensa-elf
299Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
300
301* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
302(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
303running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
304
305* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
306Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
307supported.
308
309* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
310broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
311
312* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
313stub provides the required support.
314
315* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
316longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
317
318* New commands
319
320set substitute-path
321unset substitute-path
322show substitute-path
323 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
324 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
325 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
326 between compilation and debugging.
327
328set trace-commands
329show trace-commands
330 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
331 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
332 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
333
334* REMOVED features
335
336The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
337
338Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
339an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
340
341The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
342
343* New remote packets
344
345qSupported:
346 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
347 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
348 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
349 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
350 target.
351
352qXfer:auxv:read:
353 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
354 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
355
356qXfer:memory-map:read:
357 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
358 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
359
360vFlashErase:
361vFlashWrite:
362vFlashDone:
363 Erase and program a flash memory device.
364
365* Removed remote packets
366
367qPart:auxv:read:
368 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
369 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
370
371*** Changes in GDB 6.5
372
373* New targets
374
375Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
376
377Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
378
379* New commands
380
381init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
382 only if it doesn't already have a value.
383
384The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
385
386checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
387
388restart <n> Return the program state to a
389 previously saved state.
390
391info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
392
393delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
394
395set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
396 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
397
398info forks List forks of the user program that
399 are available to be debugged.
400
401fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
402 forks of the user program that are
403 available to be debugged.
404
405delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
406 that are available to be debugged (and
407 kill the forked process).
408
409detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
410 that are available to be debugged (and
411 allow the process to continue).
412
413* New architecture
414
415Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
416
417* Improved Windows host support
418
419GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
420native console support, and remote communications using either
421network sockets or serial ports.
422
423* Improved Modula-2 language support
424
425GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
426basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
427pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
428printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
429written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
430GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
431
432* REMOVED features
433
434The ARM rdi-share module.
435
436The Netware NLM debug server.
437
438*** Changes in GDB 6.4
439
440* New native configurations
441
442OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
443OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
444
445* New targets
446
447Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
448
449* New command line options
450
451--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
452--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
453 the child (debugged) program exited with.
454--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
455 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
456 specified multiple times and in conjunction
457 with the --command (-x) option.
458
459* Deprecated commands removed
460
461The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
462removed:
463
464 Command Replacement
465 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
466 othernames set arm disassembler
467 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
468 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
469 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
470 regs info registers
471
472* New BSD user-level threads support
473
474It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
475library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
476configurations are:
477
478FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
479FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
480OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
481
482Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
483are not yet supported.
484
485* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
486(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
487
488* REMOVED configurations and files
489
490VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
491Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
492National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
493
494* New "set print array-indexes" command
495
496After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
497when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
498behavior.
499
500* VAX floating point support
501
502GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
503
504* User-defined command support
505
506In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
507to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
508section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
509
510*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
511
512* New command line option
513
514GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
515debugging.
516
517* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
518
519GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
520information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
521by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
522proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
523to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
524
525* Internationalization
526
527When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
528internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
529continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
530
531* Ada
532
533Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
534implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
535into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
536
537* New native configurations
538
539GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
540
541* Remote 'p' packet
542
543GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
544packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
545
546* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
547
548GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
549The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
550features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
551i386 application).
552
553GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
554compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
555continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
556configurations:
557
558hppa-*-hpux
559ia64-*-aix
560mips-*-irix*
561*-*-lynx
562mips-*-linux-gnu
563sds protocol
564xdr protocol
565powerpc bdm protocol
566
567Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
568made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
569
570* OBSOLETE configurations and files
571
572Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
573been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
574configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
575permanently REMOVED.
576
577h8300-*-*
578mcore-*-*
579mn10300-*-*
580ns32k-*-*
581sh64-*-*
582v850-*-*
583
584*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
585
586* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
587
588When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
589heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
590been fixed.
591
592* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
593
594When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
595fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
596IRIX long double values).
597
598* VAX and "next"
599
600A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
601command. This problem has been fixed.
602
603*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
604
605* Fix for ``many threads''
606
607On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
608rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
609error message:
610
611 ptrace: No such process.
612 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
613
614This problem has been fixed.
615
616* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
617
618Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
619GDB to dump core).
620
621* New ``start'' command.
622
623This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
624
625* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
626
627Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
628live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
629platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
630
631FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
632FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
633NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
634NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
635NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
636OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
637OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
638OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
639OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
640
641* Signal trampoline code overhauled
642
643Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
644These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
645of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
646call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
647signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
648
649Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
650features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
651include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
652
653* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
654
655* New native configurations
656
657GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
658OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
659OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
660OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
661OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
662NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
663OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
664
665* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
666
667GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
668The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
669including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
670migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
671compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
672work, was also included.
673
674GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
675module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
676
677h8300-*-*
678mcore-*-*
679mn10300-*-*
680ns32k-*-*
681sh64-*-*
682v850-*-*
683xstormy16-*-*
684
685Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
686made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
687
688* REMOVED configurations and files
689
690Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
691Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
692Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
693Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
694Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
695AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
696Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
697decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
698riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
699sonymips mips-sony-*
700sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
701
702*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
703
704* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
705
706The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
707GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
708command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
709program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
710with GDB".
711
712* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
713
714Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
715libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
716cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
717GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
718shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
719the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
720are created.
721
722Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
723
724* Fixed ISO-C build problems
725
726The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
727non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
728compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
729
730* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
731
732Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
733wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
734
735* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
736
737The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
738permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
739systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
740
741* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
742
743Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
744has been updated to use constant array sizes.
745
746* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
747
748GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
749its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
750panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
751
752* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
753
754When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
755by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
756not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
757
758*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
759
760* Removed --with-mmalloc
761
762Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
763conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
764
765* Changes in AMD64 configurations
766
767The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
768the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
769and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
770you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
771
772* Revised SPARC target
773
774The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
775FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
776support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
777from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
778(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
779
780* New C++ demangler
781
782GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
783names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
784with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
785programs.
786
787* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
788
789GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
790arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
791encountered these.
792
793* C++ nested types and namespaces
794
795GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
796improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
797is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
798Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
799namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
800"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
801frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
802if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
803GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
804
805* New native configurations
806
807NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
808OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
809OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
810OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
811OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
812
813* New debugging protocols
814
815M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
816
817* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
818
819The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
820and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
821tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
822
823* OBSOLETE configurations and files
824
825Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
826been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
827configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
828permanently REMOVED.
829
830Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
831Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
832Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
833Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
834Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
835AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
836Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
837decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
838riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
839sonymips mips-sony-*
840sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
841
842* REMOVED configurations and files
843
844SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
845SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
846Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
847Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
848H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
849HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
850HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
851HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
852PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
853386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
854Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
855 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
856 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
857SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
858SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
859Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
860Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
861
862*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
863
864* Objective-C
865
866Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
867integrated into GDB.
868
869* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
870
871DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
872information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
873By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
874backtraces.
875
876The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
877have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
878DWARF 2 CFI support.
879
880* Hosted file I/O.
881
882GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
883file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
884remote protocol documentation for details.
885
886* All targets using the new architecture framework.
887
888All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
889architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
890to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
891ppc32 on ppc64).
892
893* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
894
895GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
896per-thread variables.
897
898* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
899
900GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
901GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
902
903* Separate debug info.
904
905GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
906automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
907of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
908system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
909and optional debug files.
910
911* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
912
913DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
914describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
915debugger.
916
917GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
918for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
919
920* Java
921
922A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
923Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
924considered "useable".
925
926* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
927
928The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
929commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
930kernel.
931
932* GDB supports logging output to a file
933
934There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
935used to capture GDB's output to a file.
936
937* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
938
939The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
940disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
941command.
942
943* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
944
945The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
946registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
947
948* Profiling support
949
950A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
951be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
952session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
953"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
954data, for more informative profiling results.
955
956* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
957
958The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
959option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
960"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
961
962Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
963removed.
964
965Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
966Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
967Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
968 in a subsequent -var-update.
969
970* New native configurations.
971
972FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
973
974* Multi-arched targets.
975
976HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
977Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
978
979* OBSOLETE configurations and files
980
981Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
982been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
983configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
984permanently REMOVED.
985
986Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
987Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
988H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
989HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
990HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
991HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
992PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
993Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
994 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
995 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
996Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
997Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
998
999* REMOVED configurations and files
1000
1001V850EA ISA
1002Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1003IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1004i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1005i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1006i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1007HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1008 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1009 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1010Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1011Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1012Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1013OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1014I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1015
1016* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1017
1018The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1019the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1020context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1021address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1022The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1023
1024*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1025
1026* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1027
1028When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1029`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1030in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1031library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1032shared libs like mad''.
1033
1034* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1035
1036Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1037the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1038arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1039powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1040
1041* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1042
1043GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1044and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1045they expand.
1046
1047The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1048invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1049
1050The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1051macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1052
1053Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1054information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1055your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1056information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1057
1058* Multi-arched targets.
1059
1060DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1061DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1062NEC V850 v850-*-*
1063National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1064Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1065Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1066
1067* New targets.
1068
1069Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1070
1071
1072* New native configurations
1073
1074Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1075SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1076MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1077UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1078
1079* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1080
1081Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1082been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1083configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1084permanently REMOVED.
1085
1086Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1087OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1088IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1089Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1090Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1091Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1092i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1093i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1094i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1095HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1096 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1097 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1098I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1099
1100* OBSOLETE languages
1101
1102CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1103
1104* REMOVED configurations and files
1105
1106AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1107A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1108AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1109AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1110AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1111
1112testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1113
1114* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1115
1116This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1117commands. The default is 1024.
1118
1119* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1120
1121Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1122
1123* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1124
1125These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1126to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1127from a file into memory (restore).
1128
1129* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1130
1131The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1132including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1133of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1134
1135*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1136
1137* New targets.
1138
1139Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1140
1141* Bug fixes
1142
1143gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1144mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1145Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1146
1147gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1148dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1149Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1150
1151Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1152Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1153By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1154
1155i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1156avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1157By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1158
1159*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1160
1161* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1162
1163This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1164really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1165In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1166target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1167This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1168(notably embedded) targets.
1169
1170* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1171
1172This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1173process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1174GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1175hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1176
1177* New command line option
1178
1179GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1180
1181* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1182
1183There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1184command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1185a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1186be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1187open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1188issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1189a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1190it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1191GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1192is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1193
1194* Changes in ARM configurations.
1195
1196Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1197configuration is fully multi-arch.
1198
1199* New native configurations
1200
1201ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1202x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1203AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1204Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1205
1206* New targets
1207
1208Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1209
1210* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1211
1212Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1213been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1214configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1215permanently REMOVED.
1216
1217AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1218A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1219AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1220AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1221AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1222
1223testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1224
1225* REMOVED configurations and files
1226
1227TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1228WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1229PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1230PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1231PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1232Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1233Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1234 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1235SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1236Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1237Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1238ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1239Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1240
1241* Changes to command line processing
1242
1243The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1244for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1245
1246* Changes to key bindings
1247
1248There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1249
1250*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1251
1252Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1253
1254Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1255corrupted.
1256
1257Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1258
1259Numerous documentation fixes.
1260
1261Numerous testsuite fixes.
1262
1263*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1264
1265* New native configurations
1266
1267Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1268x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1269MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1270MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1271ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1272s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1273
1274* New targets
1275
1276Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1277CRIS cris-axis
1278UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1279
1280* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1281
1282x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1283Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1284Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1285 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1286TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1287WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1288Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1289PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1290PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1291PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1292SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1293Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1294ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1295Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1296
1297stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1298kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1299
1300Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1301been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1302configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1303permanently REMOVED.
1304
1305* REMOVED configurations and files
1306
1307Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1308Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1309Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1310ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1311Tahoe tahoe-*-*
1312ser-ocd.c *-*-*
1313
1314* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1315
1316GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1317sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1318present.
1319
1320* Other news:
1321
1322* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1323
1324* The MI enabled by default.
1325
1326The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1327revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1328engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1329using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1330which is now deprecated.
1331
1332* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1333
1334GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1335main features are supported:
1336
1337 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1338
1339 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1340 extension;
1341
1342 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1343
1344 - a Pascal expression parser.
1345
1346However, some important features are not yet supported.
1347
1348 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1349
1350 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1351
1352 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1353 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1354
1355 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1356
1357 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1358
1359* Changes in completion.
1360
1361Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1362to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1363users expect at the shell prompt.
1364
1365Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1366`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1367program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1368files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1369be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1370considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1371name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1372
1373`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1374
1375* New platform-independent commands:
1376
1377It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1378hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1379documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1380
1381* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1382
1383Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1384revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1385many threads as your system allows you to have.
1386
1387Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1388
1389Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1390multi-threaded programs though.
1391
1392* Changes in MIPS configurations.
1393
1394Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1395
1396GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1397debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1398supported.)
1399
1400* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1401
1402Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1403breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1404implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1405put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1406and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1407registers.
1408
1409The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1410debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1411watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1412
1413* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1414
1415New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1416the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1417
1418New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1419display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1420IDT.
1421
1422New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1423from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1424New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1425a given linear address.
1426
1427GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1428program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1429which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1430
1431DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1432
1433It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1434
1435* Changes in documentation.
1436
1437All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1438Documentation License.
1439
1440Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1441manual.
1442
1443TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1444
1445Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1446manual.
1447
1448The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1449documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1450hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1451
1452* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1453
1454The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1455``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1456contents of this file.
1457
1458* gdba.el deleted
1459
1460GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1461
1462*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1463
1464* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1465
1466Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1467programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1468displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1469greater level of detail.
1470
1471* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1472
1473It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1474bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1475on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1476written.
1477
1478* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1479
1480The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1481necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1482machines ``out of the box''.
1483
1484The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1485possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1486signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1487would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1488interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1489
1490It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1491standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1492even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1493and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1494terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1495
1496The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1497enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1498also works.
1499
1500DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1501GDB.
1502
1503It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1504directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1505times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1506breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1507
1508* New native configurations
1509
1510ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1511PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1512
1513* New targets
1514
1515Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1516x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1517PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1518TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1519
1520* OBSOLETE configurations
1521
1522Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1523Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1524Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1525ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1526Tahoe tahoe-*-*
1527
1528Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1529but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1530these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1531be permanently REMOVED.
1532
1533* Gould support removed
1534
1535Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1536
1537* New features for SVR4
1538
1539On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1540without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1541load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1542
1543* Many C++ enhancements
1544
1545C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1546in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1547
1548* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1549
1550A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1551sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1552with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1553``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1554
1555 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1556 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1557
1558* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1559
1560A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1561expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1562instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1563
1564The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1565added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1566
1567* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1568
1569The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1570``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1571include ``set remote P-packet''.
1572
1573* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1574
1575The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1576accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1577``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1578
1579* ``apropos'' command added.
1580
1581The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1582documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1583try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1584
1585* New MI interface
1586
1587A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1588interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1589process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1590"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1591enabled by configuring with:
1592
1593 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1594
1595*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1596
1597* New native configurations
1598
1599HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1600HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1601M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1602
1603* New targets
1604
1605Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1606Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1607Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1608
1609* OBSOLETE configurations
1610
1611Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1612
1613Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1614but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1615these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1616be permanently REMOVED.
1617
1618* ANSI/ISO C
1619
1620As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1621buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1622containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1623use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1624available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1625configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1626information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1627already.
1628
1629* Readline 2.2
1630
1631GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1632
1633* set extension-language
1634
1635You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1636languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1637you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1638 set extension-language .c c++
1639The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1640and their associated languages.
1641
1642* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1643
1644When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1645you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1646PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1647
1648 set processor NAME
1649
1650sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1651following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1652
1653 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1654 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1655 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1656 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1657 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1658 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1659 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1660 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1661 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1662 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1663 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1664
1665At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1666special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1667registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1668only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1669
1670* HP-UX support
1671
1672Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1673more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1674library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1675support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1676for xdb and dbx commands.
1677
1678* Catchpoints
1679
1680HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1681generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1682to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1683
1684This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1685argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1686output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1687
1688* Debugging across forks
1689
1690On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1691in the inferior.
1692
1693* TUI
1694
1695HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1696it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1697configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1698
1699* GDB remote protocol additions
1700
1701A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1702Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1703fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1704allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1705
1706For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1707full 64-bit address. The command
1708
1709 set remoteaddresssize 32
1710
1711can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1712the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1713will be discarded.
1714
1715In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1716command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1717
1718 maint packet heythere
1719
1720sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1721disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1722time.
1723
1724The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1725target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1726downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1727
1728* Tracing can collect general expressions
1729
1730You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1731further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1732doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1733
1734* mask-address variable for Mips
1735
1736For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1737a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1738of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1739
1740* Higher serial baud rates
1741
1742GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1743230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1744to achieve all of these rates.)
1745
1746* i960 simulator
1747
1748The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1749builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1750
1751
1752*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1753
1754* New native configurations
1755
1756Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1757Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1758Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1759PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1760PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1761Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1762Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1763
1764* New targets
1765
1766Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1767Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1768Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1769Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1770MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1771MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1772MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1773Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1774Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1775Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1776NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1777
1778* New debugging protocols
1779
1780ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1781M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1782DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1783PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1784PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1785Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1786
1787* DWARF 2
1788
1789All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1790format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1791information.
1792
1793* Java frontend
1794
1795GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1796only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1797
1798* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1799
1800For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1801loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1802locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1803
1804* Live range splitting
1805
1806GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1807range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1808more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1809
1810* Hurd support
1811
1812GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1813updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1814
1815* ARM Thumb support
1816
1817GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1818instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1819instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1820accordingly.
1821
1822* MIPS16 support
1823
1824GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1825instruction set.
1826
1827* Overlay support
1828
1829GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1830linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1831will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1832control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1833additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1834in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1835
1836* info symbol
1837
1838The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1839the symbol at the specified address.
1840
1841* Trace support
1842
1843The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1844asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1845extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1846includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1847file tracepoint.c for more details.
1848
1849* MIPS simulator
1850
1851Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1852by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1853of most MIPS variants.
1854
1855* Sparc simulator
1856
1857Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1858by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1859Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1860
1861* set architecture
1862
1863For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1864basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1865architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1866the possible architectures.
1867
1868*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1869
1870* New native configurations
1871
1872Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1873M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1874PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1875PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1876PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1877RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1878
1879* New targets
1880
1881ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1882I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1883MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1884MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1885PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1886Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1887Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1888
1889* PowerPC simulator
1890
1891The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1892contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1893PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1894basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1895performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1896
1897* Solaris 2.5
1898
1899GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1900
1901* Windows 95/NT native
1902
1903GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1904To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1905which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1906Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1907ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1908
1909* dont-repeat command
1910
1911If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1912command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1913useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1914extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1915
1916* Send break instead of ^C
1917
1918The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1919rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1920GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1921
1922* Remote protocol timeout
1923
1924The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1925that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1926to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1927
1928* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1929
1930By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1931loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1932stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1933when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1934in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1935
1936Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1937/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1938automatically on hpux10.
1939
1940* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1941
1942Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1943
1944* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1945
1946When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1947may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1948the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1949every character. The default value is 1050.
1950
1951* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1952
1953If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1954a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1955replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1956details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1957remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1958to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1959
1960* Speedups for remote debugging
1961
1962GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1963the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1964and more efficient S-record downloading.
1965
1966* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1967
1968GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1969Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1970
1971*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1972
1973* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1974
1975The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1976can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1977
1978* Remote targets use caching
1979
1980Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1981remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1982it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1983debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1984off' turns the the data cache off.
1985
1986* Remote targets may have threads
1987
1988The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1989in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1990gdb/remote.c for details.
1991
1992* NetROM support
1993
1994If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1995support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1996acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1997write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1998support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1999another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2000sequence is something like
2001
2002 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2003 load <prog>
2004 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2005
2006* Macintosh host
2007
2008GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2009may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2010it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2011available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2012device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2013directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2014scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2015mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2016
2017* Autoconf
2018
2019GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2020but does simplify configuration and building.
2021
2022* hpux10
2023
2024GDB now supports hpux10.
2025
2026*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2027
2028* New native configurations
2029
2030x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2031x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2032NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2033Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2034
2035* New targets
2036
2037A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2038HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2039CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2040PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2041WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2042
2043* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2044
2045GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2046possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2047filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2048the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2049if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2050
2051* Arguments to user-defined commands
2052
2053User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2054Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2055trivial example:
2056define adder
2057 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2058
2059To execute the command use:
2060adder 1 2 3
2061
2062Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2063Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2064use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2065
2066* New `if' and `while' commands
2067
2068This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2069commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2070expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2071execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2072terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2073`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2074if the expression is zero.
2075
2076* Fortran source language mode
2077
2078GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2079Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2080variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2081with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2082Fortran compilers.
2083
2084* Better HPUX support
2085
2086Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2087running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2088processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2089for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2090that behavior do the following before running the program:
2091
2092 adb -w a.out
2093 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2094 control-d
2095
2096This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2097To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2098
2099 adb -w a.out
2100 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2101 control-d
2102
2103You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2104the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2105external linkage.
2106
2107GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2108HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2109
2110* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2111
2112You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2113commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2114current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2115"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2116associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2117configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2118
2119* New DOS host serial code
2120
2121This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2122no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2123a PC's serial port.
2124
2125*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2126
2127* New "complete" command
2128
2129This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2130were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2131
2132* Trailing space optional in prompt
2133
2134"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2135allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2136
2137* Breakpoint hit counts
2138
2139"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2140has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2141can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2142to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2143less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2144that breakpoint.
2145
2146* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2147
2148"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2149an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2150arrays actually contain only short strings.
2151
2152* Shared library breakpoints
2153
2154In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2155breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2156
2157* Hardware watchpoints
2158
2159There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2160targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2161
2162Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2163
2164* Annotations
2165
2166Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2167and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2168
2169* Improved Irix 5 support
2170
2171GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2172
2173* Improved HPPA support
2174
2175GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2176
2177* New native configurations
2178
2179Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2180HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2181Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2182RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2183
2184* New targets
2185
2186OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2187MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2188Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2189
2190* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2191
2192There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2193This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2194
2195* Fixes
2196
2197As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2198and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2199
2200*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2201
2202* Irix 5 is now supported
2203
2204* HPPA support
2205
2206GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2207to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2208GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2209of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2210can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2211
2212
2213*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2214
2215* User visible changes:
2216
2217* Remote Debugging
2218
2219The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2220target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2221debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2222integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2223debugging info for the mips target).
2224
2225* DEC Alpha native support
2226
2227GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2228debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2229work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2230Alpha-specific notes.
2231
2232* Preliminary thread implementation
2233
2234GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2235
2236* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2237
2238This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2239to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2240for details).
2241
2242* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2243
2244This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2245mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2246call methods, ...etc.
2247
2248*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2249
2250 * User visible changes:
2251
2252Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2253supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2254other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2255somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2256
2257Filename completion now works.
2258
2259When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2260arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2261addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2262
2263All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2264vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2265should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2266your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2267to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2268
2269 * DEC alpha support
2270
2271This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2272cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2273
2274
2275*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2276
2277 * Testsuite
2278
2279This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2280The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2281via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2282
2283 * C++ demangling
2284
2285'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2286emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2287Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2288disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2289use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2290
2291 * Simulators
2292
2293GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2294So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2295Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2296
2297 * New targets supported
2298
2299H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2300H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2301SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2302Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2303IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2304
2305Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2306version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2307GO32 memory extender.
2308
2309 * New remote protocols
2310
2311MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2312
2313 * New source languages supported
2314
2315This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2316used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2317into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2318
2319
2320*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2321
2322 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2323
2324GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2325version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2326University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2327compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2328format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2329(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2330
2331Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2332
2333 * Faster and better demangling
2334
2335We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2336demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2337character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2338only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2339This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2340increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2341symbol lookups.
2342
2343`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2344from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2345compiler does not actually implement.
2346
2347 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2348
2349In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2350inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2351recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2352very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2353The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2354circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2355fix.
2356
2357The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2358release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2359
2360 * Improved configure script
2361
2362The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2363you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2364host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2365done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2366
2367We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2368version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2369`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2370The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2371only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2372We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2373
2374 * Documentation improvements
2375
2376There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2377produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2378before submitting changes.
2379
2380The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2381M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2382`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2383you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2384a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2385
2386*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2387We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2388been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2389or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2390`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2391around this problem.
2392
2393 * New features
2394
2395GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2396the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2397`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2398the target program.
2399
2400The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2401how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2402
2403 * New native hosts supported
2404
2405HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2406386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2407
2408 * New targets supported
2409
2410AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2411
2412 * New file formats supported
2413
2414BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2415HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2416
2417 * Major bug fixes
2418
2419Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2420
2421We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2422printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2423
2424We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2425for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2426release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2427
2428You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2429will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2430
2431We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2432for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2433especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2434libraries.
2435
2436The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2437information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2438command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2439any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2440when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2441
2442 * Internal improvements
2443
2444GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2445debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2446
2447GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2448Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2449symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2450contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2451shared code that handles any of them.
2452
2453 * New command line options
2454
2455We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2456
2457 * Mmalloc licensing
2458
2459The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2460General Public License.
2461
2462*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2463
2464 * Host/native/target split
2465
2466GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2467hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2468target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2469local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2470ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2471
2472The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2473GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2474is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2475code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2476any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2477built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2478handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2479
2480GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2481It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2482plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2483
2484 * New hosts supported
2485
2486HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2487386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2488386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2489
2490 * New targets supported
2491
2492Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
249368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2494
2495 * New native hosts supported
2496
2497386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2498 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2499386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2500
2501 * New file formats supported
2502
2503BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2504supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2505format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2506
2507 * New commands
2508
2509`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2510`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2511These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2512
2513`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2514
2515You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2516scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2517prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2518executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2519
2520 * C++ improvements
2521
2522We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2523info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2524symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2525
2526Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2527
2528 * Major bug fixes
2529
2530The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2531fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2532by the compiler.
2533
2534We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2535support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2536
2537John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2538slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2539that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2540purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2541the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2542mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2543
2544Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2545about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2546completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2547we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2548
2549 * AMD 29k support
2550
2551A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2552specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2553calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2554usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2555in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2556
2557We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2558Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2559of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2560resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2561
2562 * Remote interfaces
2563
2564We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2565with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2566message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2567This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2568needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2569breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2570each instruction being stepped through.
2571
2572The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2573registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2574
2575There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2576find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2577Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2578processor with a serial port.
2579
2580 * Configuration
2581
2582Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2583`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2584supported, and what files each one uses.
2585
2586 * Library changes
2587
2588There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2589disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2590Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2591disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2592
2593The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2594Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2595can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2596grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2597
2598 * Documentation
2599
2600The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2601reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2602as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2603encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2604system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2605bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2606
2607And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2608
2609
2610*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2611
2612 * Better support for C++ function names
2613
2614GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2615names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2616(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2617single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2618Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2619
2620GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2621the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2622You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2623lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2624for the list of formats.
2625
2626 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2627
2628Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2629C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2630directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2631can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2632usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2633about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2634this problem.)
2635
2636 * New 'maintenance' command
2637
2638All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2639the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2640can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2641
2642 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2643 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2644 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2645 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2646 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2647 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2648
2649The following commands are new:
2650
2651 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2652 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2653 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2654
2655 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2656
2657We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2658(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2659be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2660read after argv processing.
2661
2662 * New hosts supported
2663
2664Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2665
2666GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2667
2668We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2669is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2670for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2671masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2672fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2673It costs extra.
2674
2675 * New targets supported
2676
2677Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2678
2679 * More smarts about finding #include files
2680
2681GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2682all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2683greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2684especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2685the one that contains your sources.
2686
2687We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2688breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2689try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2690
2691 * Interesting infernals change
2692
2693GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2694section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2695target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2696stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2697
2698 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2699
2700There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2701 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2702 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2703
2704See the ChangeLog for details.
2705
2706*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2707
2708 * New machines supported (host and target)
2709
2710IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2711
2712SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2713
2714 * New malloc package
2715
2716GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2717Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2718capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2719This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2720pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2721more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2722
2723 * info proc
2724
2725The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2726'help info proc' for details.
2727
2728 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2729
2730The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2731Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2732possible.
2733
2734 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2735
2736Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2737support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2738conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2739environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2740that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2741in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2742
2743 * Cross byte order fixes
2744
2745Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2746targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2747
2748 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2749
2750If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2751system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2752`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2753program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2754called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2755Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2756and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2757the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2758option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2759starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2760
2761You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2762the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2763information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2764slower, but makes future operations faster.
2765
2766The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2767build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2768A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2769use is:
2770
2771 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2772
2773The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2774It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2775shared across multiple host platforms.
2776
2777 * longjmp() handling
2778
2779GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2780siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2781all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2782platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2783
2784 * Solaris 2.0
2785
2786Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2787this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2788reading symbols.
2789
2790 * Bug fixes
2791
2792As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2793People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2794crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2795
2796*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2797
2798 * New machines supported (host and target)
2799
2800SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2801 (except core files)
2802BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2803Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2804
2805 * New machines supported (target)
2806
2807AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2808
2809 * C++ support
2810
2811GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2812The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2813per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2814
2815GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2816`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2817extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2818good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2819will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2820released.
2821
2822 * New features for SVR4
2823
2824GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2825shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2826only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2827
2828The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2829on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2830it prints the address mappings of the process.
2831
2832If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2833bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2834
2835 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2836
2837Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2838now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2839skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2840make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2841same code linked statically.
2842
2843 * New Getopt
2844
2845GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2846version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2847continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2848Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2849added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2850future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2851
2852 * Bugs fixed
2853
2854The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2855Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2856See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2857
2858
2859*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2860
2861 * New machines supported (host and target)
2862
2863Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2864NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2865Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2866
2867 * Almost SCO Unix support
2868
2869We had hoped to support:
2870SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2871(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2872that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2873about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2874
2875 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2876
2877GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2878debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2879is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2880send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2881reqired (if any).
2882
2883 * New Readline
2884
2885GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2886is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2887required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2888
2889 * Bugs fixed
2890
2891The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2892Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2893See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2894
2895 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2896
2897GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2898supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2899symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2900
2901Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2902mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2903debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2904mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2905version 2.
2906
2907Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2908really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2909line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2910variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2911situation somewhat.
2912
2913When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2914However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2915methods.
2916
2917We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2918DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2919encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2920
2921
2922*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2923
2924 * Improved configuration
2925
2926Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2927Porting BFD is simpler.
2928
2929 * Stepping improved
2930
2931The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2932of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2933in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2934function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2935
2936 * Bug fixing
2937
2938Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2939
2940 * New host supported (not target)
2941
2942Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2943
2944
2945*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2946
2947 * Multiple source language support
2948
2949GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2950It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2951and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2952language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2953You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2954`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2955
2956 * GDB and Modula-2
2957
2958GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2959currently under development at the State University of New York at
2960Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2961continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2962
2963Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2964debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2965symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2966
2967There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2968in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2969
2970 * set write on/off
2971
2972GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2973a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2974the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2975by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2976effect immediately.
2977
2978 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2979
2980When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2981shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2982The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2983examining core files.
2984
2985 * set listsize
2986
2987You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2988The default is 10.
2989
2990 * New machines supported (host and target)
2991
2992SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2993Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2994Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2995
2996 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2997
2998IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2999
3000 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3001
3002AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3003AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3004Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3005
3006 * New remote interfaces
3007
3008AMD 29000 Adapt
3009AMD 29000 Minimon
3010
3011
3012*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3013
3014 * New Facilities
3015
3016Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3017
3018Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3019target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3020is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3021remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3022remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3023also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3024using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3025stub on the target system.
3026
3027New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3028
3029GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3030library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3031object file types such as a.out and coff.
3032
3033There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3034refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3035
3036
3037 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3038
3039All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3040by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3041
3042For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3043``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3044Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3045
3046What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3047print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3048will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3049all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3050
3051confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3052 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3053 it is already running. Default is ON.
3054
3055editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3056 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3057 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3058 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3059 Default is ON.
3060
3061history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3062 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3063 or the value of the environment variable
3064 GDBHISTFILE.
3065
3066history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3067 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3068 HISTSIZE.
3069
3070history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3071 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3072 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3073
3074history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3075 history expansion will be performed on
3076 command line input. The default is OFF.
3077
3078radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3079 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3080 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3081
3082height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3083 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3084 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3085 variable TERM.
3086
3087width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3088 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3089 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3090 variable TERM.
3091
3092Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3093``set width'' instead.
3094
3095print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3096 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3097 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3098 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3099
3100print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3101 is OFF.
3102
3103print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3104 "raw" form if off.
3105
3106print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3107 like instructions.
3108
3109print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3110
3111
3112 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3113
3114The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3115new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3116are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3117window.
3118
3119
3120 * Support for Shared Libraries
3121
3122GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3123Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3124before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3125happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3126At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3127from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3128shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3129It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3130
3131sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3132 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3133 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3134
3135info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3136
3137
3138 * Watchpoints
3139
3140A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3141expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3142tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3143quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3144problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3145more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3146
3147watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3148
3149info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3150
3151delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3152disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3153enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3154
3155
3156 * C++ multiple inheritance
3157
3158When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3159for C++ programs.
3160
3161 * C++ exception handling
3162
3163Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3164ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3165the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3166handler's context).
3167
3168catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3169 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3170 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3171
3172info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3173 current stack frame.
3174
3175
3176 * Minor command changes
3177
3178The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3179command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3180is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3181
3182The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3183at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3184frames without printing.
3185
3186 * New directory command
3187
3188'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3189The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3190about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3191with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3192find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3193
3194 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3195
3196For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3197for more details.
3198
3199GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3200two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3201Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3202where the program that you are debugging will run.
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