2013-05-10 Phil Muldoon <pmuldoon@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
6 * Python scripting
7
8 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
9
10 * New targets
11
12 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
13 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
14
15 * New commands:
16 catch rethrow
17 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
18
19 show configuration
20 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
21
22 maint set|show per-command
23 maint set|show per-command space
24 maint set|show per-command time
25 maint set|show per-command symtab
26 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
27
28 * New options
29
30 set remote trace-status-packet
31 show remote trace-status-packet
32 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
33
34 set debug nios2
35 show debug nios2
36 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
37
38 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
39 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
40 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
41 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
42 "set height 0".
43
44 * New command-line options
45 --configuration
46 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
47
48 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
49 buffer in Common Trace Format.
50
51 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
52 GDB command gcore.
53
54 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
55
56 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
57 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
58
59 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
60 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
61
62 * MI changes
63
64 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
65 Trace Format now.
66
67 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
68
69 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
70 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
71 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
72 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
73
74 set|show record full insn-number-max
75 set|show record full stop-at-limit
76 set|show record full memory-query
77
78 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
79 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
80 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
81 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
82 This new recording method can be enabled using:
83
84 record btrace
85
86 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
87 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
88
89 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
90 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
91 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
92
93 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
94 instruction granularity
95
96 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
97 function granularity
98
99 * New native configurations
100
101 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
102 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
103 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
104 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
105
106 * New targets
107
108 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
109 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
110 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
111 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
112 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
113
114 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
115 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
116 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
117 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
118 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
119 --data-directory command-line option.
120
121 * New command line options:
122
123 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
124 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
125
126 * Removed command line options
127
128 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
129 Emacs.
130
131 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
132 type formatting.
133
134 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
135
136 * Python scripting
137
138 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
139
140 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
141
142 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
143
144 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
145
146 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
147 of architecture in the Python API.
148
149 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
150 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
151
152 * New Python-based convenience functions:
153
154 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
155 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
156 ** $_strlen(str)
157 ** $_regex(str, regex)
158
159 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
160 given an argument.
161
162 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
163 default for GCC since November 2000.
164
165 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
166
167 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
168 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
169
170 * New configure options
171
172 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
173 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
174 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
175 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
176 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
177 options allow the user to override that default.
178 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
179 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
180 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
181
182 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
183
184 catch signal
185 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
186 conditions to be attached.
187
188 maint info bfds
189 List the BFDs known to GDB.
190
191 python-interactive [command]
192 pi [command]
193 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
194 and print the result of expressions.
195
196 py [command]
197 "py" is a new alias for "python".
198
199 enable type-printer [name]...
200 disable type-printer [name]...
201 Enable or disable type printers.
202
203 * Removed commands
204
205 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
206 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
207 instead.
208
209 * New options
210
211 set print type methods (on|off)
212 show print type methods
213 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
214 The default is to show them.
215
216 set print type typedefs (on|off)
217 show print type typedefs
218 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
219 The default is to show them.
220
221 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
222 show filename-display
223 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
224 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
225
226 set trace-buffer-size
227 show trace-buffer-size
228 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
229
230 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
231 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
232 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
233
234 set debug aarch64
235 show debug aarch64
236 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
237 The default is off.
238
239 set debug coff-pe-read
240 show debug coff-pe-read
241 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
242 exported symbols.
243
244 set debug mach-o
245 show debug mach-o
246 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
247 processing.
248
249 set debug notification
250 show debug notification
251 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
252
253 * MI changes
254
255 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
256 "=cmd-param-changed".
257 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
258 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
259 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
260 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
261 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
262 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
263 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
264 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
265 "=memory-changed".
266 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
267 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
268 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
269 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
270 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
271 library load/unload events.
272 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
273 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
274 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
275 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
276 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
277 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
278 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
279 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
280
281 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
282 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
283 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
284 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
285
286 * New remote packets
287
288 QTBuffer:size
289 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
290 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
291
292 Qbtrace:bts
293 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
294 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
295 qSupported query.
296
297 Qbtrace:off
298 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
299 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
300
301 qXfer:btrace:read
302 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
303 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
304
305 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
306
307 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
308 for more x32 ABI info.
309
310 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
311
312 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
313
314 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
315 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
316 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
317 "info os files" lists file descriptors
318 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
319 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
320 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
321 "info os msg" lists message queues
322 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
323
324 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
325 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
326 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
327 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
328 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
329 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
330
331 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
332 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
333 record/replay support.
334
335 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
336
337 * Python scripting
338
339 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
340 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
341
342 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
343
344 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
345 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
346
347 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
348
349 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
350 the source at which the symbol was defined.
351
352 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
353 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
354 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
355 symbol's value.
356
357 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
358 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
359
360 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
361 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
362 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
363
364 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
365 object associated with a PC value.
366
367 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
368 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
369
370 * Go language support.
371 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
372 language.
373
374 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
375 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
376
377 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
378 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
379
380 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
381 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
382 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
383 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
384 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
385 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
386
387 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
388 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
389 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
390 build/libcpp/expr.c.
391
392 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
393 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
394
395 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
396 since December 2007.
397
398 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
399 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
400 command does. For instance:
401
402 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
403
404 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
405 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
406 created, using the "condition" command.
407
408 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
409 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
410
411 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
412
413 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
414 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
415 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
416 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
417 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
418 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
419 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
420 files with older .gdb_index sections.
421
422 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
423 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
424 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
425 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
426 the .gdb_index section.
427
428 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
429
430 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
431 target.
432
433 * MI changes
434
435 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
436
437 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
438
439 * New commands
440
441 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
442 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
443 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
444
445 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
446 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
447
448 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
449 several hits.
450
451 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
452 C++ and Java objects.
453
454 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
455 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
456 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
457 configured with '--with-python'.
458
459 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
460 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
461 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
462 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
463 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
464 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
465 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
466
467 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
468 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
469 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
470 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
471
472 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
473 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
474 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
475 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
476
477 ** "set print symbol"
478 "show print symbol"
479 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
480 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
481 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
482
483 * Deprecated commands
484
485 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
486 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
487
488 * New targets
489
490 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
491 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
492
493 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
494 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
495 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
496 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
497 evaluates to true.
498
499 * New options
500
501 set mips compression
502 show mips compression
503 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
504 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
505 mips16
506 micromips
507 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
508
509 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
510 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
511 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
512 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
513 available mode.
514 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
515 target.
516
517 set auto-load off
518 Disable auto-loading globally.
519
520 show auto-load
521 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
522
523 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
524 show auto-load gdb-scripts
525 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
526
527 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
528 show auto-load python-scripts
529 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
530
531 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
532 show auto-load local-gdbinit
533 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
534
535 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
536 show auto-load libthread-db
537 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
538
539 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
540 show auto-load scripts-directory
541 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
542 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
543 of the directories listed by this option.
544 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
545
546 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
547 show auto-load safe-path
548 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
549 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
550
551 set debug auto-load on|off
552 show debug auto-load
553 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
554
555 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
556 show dprintf-style
557 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
558 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
559 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
560 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
561
562 set dprintf-function <expr>
563 show dprintf-function
564 set dprintf-channel <expr>
565 show dprintf-channel
566 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
567 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
568
569 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
570 show disconnected-dprintf
571 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
572 after GDB disconnects.
573
574 * New configure options
575
576 --with-auto-load-dir
577 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
578 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
579 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
580 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
581 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
582
583 --with-auto-load-safe-path
584 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
585 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
586
587 --without-auto-load-safe-path
588 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
589 security feature.
590
591 * New remote packets
592
593 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
594
595 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
596 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
597 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
598 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
599
600 QProgramSignals:
601
602 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
603 program without GDB involvement.
604
605 * New command line options
606
607 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
608 before loading inferior.
609 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
610 execute it before loading inferior.
611
612 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
613
614 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
615 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
616 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
617 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
618 inferior changes.
619
620 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
621 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
622
623 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
624 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
625 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
626 target hardware watchpoint.
627
628 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
629 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
630 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
631 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
632
633 * Python scripting
634
635 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
636 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
637 existing one.
638
639 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
640 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
641 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
642 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
643 now "message", which just prints the error message without
644 the stack trace.
645
646 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
647 Python API.
648
649 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
650 modules library. This module provides functionality for
651 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
652 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
653 corresponding value.
654
655 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
656 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
657 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
658 on GDB start-up.
659
660 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
661 static_block will return the global and static blocks
662 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
663 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
664
665 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
666
667 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
668 "gdb.breakpoints".
669
670 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
671 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
672 available in the CLI.
673
674 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
675 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
676 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
677 "some_type.items()".
678
679 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
680 new object file.
681
682 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
683 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
684 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
685 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
686 any anonymous fields.
687
688 * MI changes
689
690 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
691 "solib-event".
692
693 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
694 "=breakpoint-modified".
695
696 ** New command -ada-task-info.
697
698 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
699 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
700 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
701 lives.
702
703 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
704 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
705 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
706 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
707 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
708
709 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
710 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
711
712 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
713 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
714 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
715 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
716 use this option to specify where to find it.
717
718 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
719 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
720 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
721 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
722 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
723 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
724 section in the user manual for more details.
725
726 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
727 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
728 become available after that.
729
730 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
731
732 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
733 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
734 gcc version 4.7.
735
736 * New commands
737
738 !SHELL COMMAND
739 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
740 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
741
742 * Changed commands
743
744 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
745 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
746 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
747
748 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
749 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
750 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
751
752 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
753 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
754 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
755 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
756 name starts with a hyphen.
757
758 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
759 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
760 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
761 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
762 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
763 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
764 number of bytes that will be collected.
765
766 tstart [NOTES]
767 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
768 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
769 setting the variable trace-notes.
770
771 tstop [NOTES]
772 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
773 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
774 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
775 trace-stop-notes.
776
777 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
778 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
779 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
780 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
781 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
782 is running.
783
784 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
785 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
786 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
787
788 * New options
789
790 set debug dwarf2-read
791 show debug dwarf2-read
792 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
793 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
794
795 set debug symtab-create
796 show debug symtab-create
797 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
798 creation. The default is off.
799
800 set extended-prompt
801 show extended-prompt
802 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
803 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
804 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
805 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
806 prompt is displayed.
807
808 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
809 show print entry-values
810 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
811 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
812 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
813
814 set debug entry-values
815 show debug entry-values
816 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
817 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
818
819 set basenames-may-differ
820 show basenames-may-differ
821 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
822 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
823 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
824 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
825 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
826 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
827 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
828 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
829
830 set trace-user
831 show trace-user
832 set trace-notes
833 show trace-notes
834 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
835 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
836 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
837 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
838
839 set trace-stop-notes
840 show trace-stop-notes
841 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
842 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
843 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
844 started by someone else.
845
846 * New remote packets
847
848 QTEnable
849
850 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
851
852 QTDisable
853
854 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
855
856 QTNotes
857
858 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
859
860 qTP
861
862 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
863
864 qTMinFTPILen
865
866 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
867 be placed.
868
869 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
870 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
871
872 * New targets
873
874 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
875
876 * New Simulators
877
878 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
879
880 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
881
882 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
883
884 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
885
886 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
887 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
888 matches the given regular expression.
889
890 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
891
892 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
893 dumping the instruction opcodes.
894
895 * New command line options
896
897 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
898 This is mostly for testing purposes.
899
900 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
901 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
902
903 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
904 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
905 source path list instead of augmenting it.
906
907 * GDB now understands thread names.
908
909 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
910 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
911
912 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
913 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
914
915 * OpenCL C
916 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
917 has been integrated into GDB.
918
919 * Python scripting
920
921 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
922 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
923 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
924
925 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
926 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
927 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
928 and allows for more dynamic content.
929
930 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
931 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
932 have an is_valid method.
933
934 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
935 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
936 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
937
938 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
939
940 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
941 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
942 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
943 that function like so:
944
945 result = some_value (10,20)
946
947 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
948 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
949 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
950
951 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
952 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
953 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
954 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
955 New function: register_pretty_printer.
956
957 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
958 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
959
960 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
961
962 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
963 selected thread.
964
965 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
966 holds the thread's name.
967
968 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
969 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
970 occurring in the process being debugged.
971 The following events are currently supported:
972 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
973 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
974 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
975
976 * C++ Improvements:
977
978 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
979 instantiation. For example, if you have:
980
981 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
982
983 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
984 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
985 was added to GCC 4.5.
986
987 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
988 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
989 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
990 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
991 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
992 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
993
994 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
995 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
996 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
997 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
998 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
999
1000 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1001 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1002 execution to a label.
1003
1004 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1005 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1006 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1007 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1008
1009 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1010 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1011 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1012 of scope.
1013
1014 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1015
1016 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1017 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1018 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1019 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1020 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1021 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1022
1023 (gdb) info threads
1024 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1025
1026 While now you see this:
1027
1028 (gdb) info threads
1029 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1030
1031 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1032 dumps.
1033
1034 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1035 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1036 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1037 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1038
1039 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1040 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1041 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1042 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1043 section in the user manual for more details.
1044
1045 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1046
1047 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1048 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1049
1050 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1051
1052 * New native configurations
1053
1054 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1055
1056 * New targets:
1057
1058 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1059
1060 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1061 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1062 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1063 in the GDB user manual.
1064
1065 * Guile support was removed.
1066
1067 * New features in the GNU simulator
1068
1069 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1070
1071 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1072
1073 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1074
1075 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1076
1077 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1078 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1079 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1080 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1081 was always disabled for such configurations.
1082
1083 * C++ Improvements:
1084
1085 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1086
1087 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1088 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1089 For example:
1090 namespace A
1091 {
1092 class B { };
1093 void foo (B) { }
1094 }
1095 ...
1096 A::B b
1097 foo(b)
1098 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1099 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1100 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1101
1102 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1103
1104 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1105 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1106 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1107 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1108 entry.
1109 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1110 mentioned flavors of operators.
1111
1112 ** static const class members
1113
1114 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1115 class definition has been fixed.
1116
1117 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1118
1119 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1120 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1121 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1122 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1123 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1124 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1125
1126 * Static tracepoints
1127
1128 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1129 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1130 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1131 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1132 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1133 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1134 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1135 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1136 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1137 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1138 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1139 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1140 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1141 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1142 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1143 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1144 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1145 the "New remote packets" section below.
1146
1147 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1148
1149 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1150 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1151 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1152 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1153
1154 * Observer mode
1155
1156 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1157 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1158 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1159 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1160 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1161 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1162 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1163
1164 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1165 current thread.
1166
1167 * New remote packets
1168
1169 qGetTIBAddr
1170
1171 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1172
1173 qRelocInsn
1174
1175 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1176 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1177 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1178 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1179 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1180 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1181
1182 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1183
1184 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1185
1186 qTSTMat
1187
1188 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1189 program.
1190
1191 qXfer:statictrace:read
1192
1193 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1194 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1195 to gdb's qSupported query.
1196
1197 QAllow
1198
1199 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1200
1201 QTDPsrc
1202
1203 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1204 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1205
1206 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1207 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1208 a directory.
1209
1210 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1211
1212 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1213 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1214 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1215 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1216
1217 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1218 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1219 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1220 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1221 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1222 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1223 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1224
1225 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1226 for static tracepoints support.
1227
1228 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1229
1230 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1231 it understands register description.
1232
1233 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1234
1235 * X86 general purpose registers
1236
1237 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1238 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1239 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1240 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1241 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1242
1243 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1244 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1245 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1246 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1247 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1248 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1249
1250 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1251 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1252 in the specified file.
1253
1254 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1255 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1256 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1257 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1258 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1259 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1260 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1261 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1262 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1263 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1264
1265 * New commands
1266
1267 eval template, expressions...
1268 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1269 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1270
1271 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1272 show target-file-system-kind
1273 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1274 names.
1275
1276 save breakpoints <filename>
1277 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1278 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1279 definitions, use the `source' command.
1280
1281 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1282 is now deprecated.
1283
1284 info static-tracepoint-markers
1285 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1286
1287 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1288 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1289 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1290
1291 set observer on|off
1292 show observer
1293 Enable and disable observer mode.
1294
1295 set may-write-registers on|off
1296 set may-write-memory on|off
1297 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1298 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1299 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1300 set may-interrupt on|off
1301 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1302 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1303 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1304 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1305 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1306 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1307 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1308
1309 set record memory-query on|off
1310 show record memory-query
1311 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1312 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1313
1314 * Changed commands
1315
1316 disassemble
1317 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1318
1319 * Python scripting
1320
1321 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1322 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1323 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1324 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1325 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1326
1327 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1328 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1329 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1330 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1331
1332 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1333 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1334
1335 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1336
1337 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1338
1339 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1340
1341 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1342 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1343 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1344
1345 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1346 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1347 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1348 regular breakpoints.
1349
1350 * New targets
1351
1352 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1353
1354 * D language support.
1355 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1356 language.
1357
1358 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1359 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1360 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1361 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1362 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1363
1364 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1365 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1366 conditions of the form:
1367
1368 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1369
1370 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1371 interface mentioned above.
1372
1373 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1374
1375 * C++ Improvements
1376
1377 ** Namespace Support
1378
1379 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1380 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1381 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1382 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1383 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1384
1385 ** Bug Fixes
1386
1387 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1388 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1389 qualified name.
1390
1391 ** Cast Operators
1392
1393 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1394 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1395
1396 * New targets
1397
1398 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1399 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
1400
1401 * New Simulators
1402
1403 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1404 Renesas RX rx
1405
1406 * Multi-program debugging.
1407
1408 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1409 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1410 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1411 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1412 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1413 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1414 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1415 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1416
1417 * New tracing features
1418
1419 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1420
1421 ** Trace state variables
1422
1423 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1424 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1425 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1426 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1427 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1428 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1429 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1430 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1431 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1432 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1433
1434 ** Fast tracepoints
1435
1436 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1437 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1438 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1439 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1440 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1441 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1442 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1443 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1444 the regular trace command.
1445
1446 ** Disconnected tracing
1447
1448 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1449 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1450 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1451 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1452 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1453
1454 ** Trace files
1455
1456 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1457 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1458 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1459 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1460 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1461 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1462 <name>".
1463
1464 ** Circular trace buffer
1465
1466 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1467 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1468 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1469 not be available for all target agents.
1470
1471 * Changed commands
1472
1473 disassemble
1474 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1475 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1476
1477 info variables
1478 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1479 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1480
1481 source
1482 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1483 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1484 support.
1485
1486 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1487 "set script-extension" (see below).
1488
1489 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1490
1491 record save [<FILENAME>]
1492 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1493 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1494
1495 record restore <FILENAME>
1496 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1497 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1498
1499 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1500 Add a new inferior.
1501
1502 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1503 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1504 inferior has loaded.
1505
1506 remove-inferior ID
1507 Remove an inferior.
1508
1509 maint info program-spaces
1510 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1511
1512 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1513 show remote interrupt-sequence
1514 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1515 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1516 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1517 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1518 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1519
1520 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1521 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1522 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1523 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1524 Linux kernel.
1525
1526 set remotebreak [on | off]
1527 show remotebreak
1528 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1529
1530 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1531 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1532
1533 info tvariables
1534 List trace state variables and their values.
1535
1536 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1537 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1538
1539 teval EXPR, ...
1540 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1541 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1542
1543 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1544 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1545
1546 * New expression syntax
1547
1548 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1549 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1550
1551 * New options
1552
1553 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1554 show follow-exec-mode
1555 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1556 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1557 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1558
1559 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1560 show default-collect
1561 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1562 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1563 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1564
1565 set disconnected-tracing
1566 show disconnected-tracing
1567 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1568 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1569 upon disconnection.
1570
1571 set circular-trace-buffer
1572 show circular-trace-buffer
1573 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1574 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1575 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1576 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1577
1578 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1579 show script-extension
1580 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1581 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1582 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1583 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1584 evaluation failed.
1585 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1586
1587 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1588 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1589 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1590 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1591 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1592 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1593 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1594 is on.
1595
1596 * Python API Improvements
1597
1598 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1599 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1600 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1601
1602 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1603 `is_base_class' attribute.
1604
1605 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1606
1607 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1608 evaluate an expression.
1609
1610 * New remote packets
1611
1612 QTDV
1613 Define a trace state variable.
1614
1615 qTV
1616 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1617
1618 QTDisconnected
1619 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1620
1621 QTBuffer:circular
1622 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1623
1624 qTfP, qTsP
1625 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1626
1627 * Bug fixes
1628
1629 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1630
1631 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1632 much more reliable. In particular:
1633 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1634 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1635 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1636 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1637 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1638 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1639 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1640 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1641 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1642 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1643 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1644 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1645 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1646 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1647 non-threaded programs.
1648
1649 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1650 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1651 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1652 executable program.
1653
1654 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1655
1656 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1657 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1658 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1659 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1660 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1661
1662 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1663 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1664 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1665 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1666 for tracepoint actions.
1667
1668 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1669 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1670 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1671
1672 * Process record and replay
1673
1674 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1675 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1676 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1677 execute commands.
1678
1679 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1680 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1681 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1682 reverse execution.
1683
1684 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1685 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1686 2.6.28 or later.
1687
1688 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1689 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1690 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1691 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1692 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1693 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1694 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1695 the installation instructions for more information.
1696
1697 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1698 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1699 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1700 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1701
1702 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1703 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1704
1705 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1706 now complete on file names.
1707
1708 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1709 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1710 For instance, consider:
1711
1712 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1713 # struct example variable;
1714 (gdb) p variable.
1715
1716 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1717 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1718
1719 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1720 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1721
1722 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1723 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1724 macros.
1725
1726 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1727 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1728 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1729
1730 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1731 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1732 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1733 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1734
1735 * New remote packets
1736
1737 qSearch:memory:
1738 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1739
1740 QStartNoAckMode
1741 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1742 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1743 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1744
1745 vKill
1746 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1747 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1748
1749 qXfer:osdata:read
1750 Obtains additional operating system information
1751
1752 qXfer:siginfo:read
1753 qXfer:siginfo:write
1754 Read or write additional signal information.
1755
1756 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1757
1758 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1759 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1760 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1761
1762 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1763 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1764
1765 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1766 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1767 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1768
1769 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1770 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1771
1772 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1773
1774 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1775
1776 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1777 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1778
1779 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1780 list of section offsets.
1781
1782 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1783 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1784 have also been fixed.
1785
1786 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1787 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1788 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1789
1790 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1791 example, given:
1792
1793 template<typename T> class C { };
1794 C<char const *> c;
1795
1796 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1797
1798 ptype C<char const *>
1799 ptype C<char const*>
1800 ptype C<const char *>
1801 ptype C<const char*>
1802
1803 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1804
1805 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1806 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1807
1808 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1809 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1810 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1811
1812 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1813 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1814
1815 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1816 gdbserver.
1817
1818 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1819 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1820
1821 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1822 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1823 as appropriate.
1824
1825 * Python scripting
1826
1827 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1828 available is determined at configure time.
1829
1830 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1831
1832 * Ada tasking support
1833
1834 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1835 been introduced:
1836
1837 info tasks
1838 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1839 info task N
1840 Print detailed information about task number N.
1841 task
1842 Print the task number of the current task.
1843 task N
1844 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1845
1846 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1847 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1848
1849 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1850
1851 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1852 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1853 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1854 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1855 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1856 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1857 below.
1858
1859 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1860 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1861 information.
1862
1863 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1864 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1865 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1866 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1867 more information.
1868
1869 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1870
1871 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1872 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1873 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1874 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1875 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1876
1877 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1878 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1879 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1880 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1881 --enable-targets configure option.
1882
1883 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1884
1885 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1886 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1887 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1888 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1889 section in the user manual for more information.
1890
1891 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1892 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1893 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1894 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1895 extensions on linux targets.
1896
1897 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1898
1899 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1900 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1901 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1902 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1903 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1904 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1905 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1906 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1907 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1908
1909 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1910 val1 [, val2, ...]
1911 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1912
1913 maint set python print-stack
1914 maint show python print-stack
1915 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1916
1917 python [CODE]
1918 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1919
1920 macro define
1921 macro list
1922 macro undef
1923 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1924 interactively.
1925
1926 info os processes
1927 Show operating system information about processes.
1928
1929 info inferiors
1930 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1931
1932 inferior NUM
1933 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1934
1935 detach inferior NUM
1936 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1937
1938 kill inferior NUM
1939 Kill inferior number NUM.
1940
1941 * New options
1942
1943 set spu stop-on-load
1944 show spu stop-on-load
1945 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1946
1947 set spu auto-flush-cache
1948 show spu auto-flush-cache
1949 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1950 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1951
1952 set sh calling-convention
1953 show sh calling-convention
1954 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1955
1956 set debug timestamp
1957 show debug timestamp
1958 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1959
1960 set disassemble-next-line
1961 show disassemble-next-line
1962 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1963 the debuggee stops.
1964
1965 set remote noack-packet
1966 show remote noack-packet
1967 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1968 under "New remote packets."
1969
1970 set remote query-attached-packet
1971 show remote query-attached-packet
1972 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1973
1974 set remote read-siginfo-object
1975 show remote read-siginfo-object
1976 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1977 packet.
1978
1979 set remote write-siginfo-object
1980 show remote write-siginfo-object
1981 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1982 packet.
1983
1984 set remote reverse-continue
1985 show remote reverse-continue
1986 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1987
1988 set remote reverse-step
1989 show remote reverse-step
1990 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1991
1992 set displaced-stepping
1993 show displaced-stepping
1994 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1995 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1996 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1997
1998 set debug displaced
1999 show debug displaced
2000 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2001
2002 maint set internal-error
2003 maint show internal-error
2004 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2005
2006 maint set internal-warning
2007 maint show internal-warning
2008 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2009
2010 set exec-wrapper
2011 show exec-wrapper
2012 unset exec-wrapper
2013 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2014
2015 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2016 show multiple-symbols
2017 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2018 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2019 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2020
2021 set breakpoint always-inserted
2022 show breakpoint always-inserted
2023 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2024 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2025 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2026
2027 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2028 show arm fallback-mode
2029 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2030 show arm force-mode
2031 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2032 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2033 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2034 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2035
2036 set disable-randomization
2037 show disable-randomization
2038 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2039 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2040 multiple debugging sessions.
2041
2042 set non-stop
2043 show non-stop
2044 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2045 a breakpoint.
2046
2047 set target-async
2048 show target-async
2049 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2050 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2051 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2052 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2053
2054 set target-wide-charset
2055 show target-wide-charset
2056 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2057 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2058
2059 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2060 show tcp auto-retry
2061 set tcp connect-timeout
2062 show tcp connect-timeout
2063 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2064 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2065 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2066
2067 set libthread-db-search-path
2068 show libthread-db-search-path
2069 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2070 libthread_db.
2071
2072 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2073 show schedule-multiple
2074 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2075 the current process.
2076
2077 set stack-cache
2078 show stack-cache
2079 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2080 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2081 affecting correctness.
2082
2083 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2084 show interactive-mode
2085 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2086 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2087 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2088 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2089 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2090
2091 * Removed commands
2092
2093 info forks
2094 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2095 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2096 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2097 command.
2098
2099 fork NUM
2100 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2101 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2102 alias for the `fork' command.
2103
2104 process PID
2105 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2106 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2107 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2108
2109 delete fork NUM
2110 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2111 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2112 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2113 fork' command.
2114
2115 detach fork NUM
2116 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2117 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2118 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2119 fork' command.
2120
2121 * New native configurations
2122
2123 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2124
2125 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2126
2127 * New targets
2128
2129 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2130 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2131 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2132 S+core 3 score-*-*
2133
2134 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2135 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2136
2137 * Removed commands
2138
2139 catch load
2140 catch unload
2141 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2142
2143 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2144
2145 * New native configurations
2146
2147 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2148 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2149
2150 * New targets
2151
2152 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2153 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2154
2155 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2156
2157 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2158 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2159 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2160 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2161
2162 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2163 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2164
2165 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2166 is resolved.
2167
2168 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2169 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2170 and in inlined functions.
2171
2172 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2173 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2174 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2175
2176 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2177
2178 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2179 registers on PowerPC targets.
2180
2181 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2182 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2183
2184 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2185 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2186
2187 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2188 extended-remote mode.
2189
2190 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2191 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2192 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2193 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2194
2195 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2196 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2197 target architectures.
2198
2199 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2200 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2201 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2202 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2203
2204 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2205 breakpoints now.
2206
2207 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2208 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2209 include:
2210 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2211 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2212 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2213 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2214 of an assignment
2215 - Improved command completion in Ada
2216 - Several bug fixes
2217
2218 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2219 process.
2220
2221 * New commands
2222
2223 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2224 show print frame-arguments
2225 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2226 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2227
2228 remote put
2229 remote get
2230 remote delete
2231 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2232
2233 * New MI commands
2234
2235 -target-file-put
2236 -target-file-get
2237 -target-file-delete
2238 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2239
2240 * New remote packets
2241
2242 vFile:open:
2243 vFile:close:
2244 vFile:pread:
2245 vFile:pwrite:
2246 vFile:unlink:
2247 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2248
2249 vAttach
2250 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2251 mode.
2252
2253 vRun
2254 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2255
2256 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2257
2258 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2259 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2260 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2261
2262 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2263 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2264 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2265
2266 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2267 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2268 is not supported.
2269
2270 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2271 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2272
2273 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2274 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2275
2276 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2277
2278 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2279 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2280 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2281
2282 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2283 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2284
2285 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2286 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2287 as strings.
2288
2289 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2290 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2291 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2292
2293 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2294 iWMMXt coprocessor.
2295
2296 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2297 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2298 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2299
2300 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2301
2302 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2303
2304 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2305 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2306 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2307
2308 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2309 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2310
2311 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2312 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2313 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2314 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2315 Windows and SymbianOS).
2316
2317 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2318 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2319
2320 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2321 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2322
2323 * New commands
2324
2325 set remoteflow
2326 show remoteflow
2327 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2328 when debugging using remote targets.
2329
2330 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2331 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2332 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2333 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2334 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2335 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2336 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2337
2338 set breakpoint auto-hw
2339 show breakpoint auto-hw
2340 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2341 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2342 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2343 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2344 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2345 including "next" and "finish".
2346
2347 catch exception
2348 catch exception unhandled
2349 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2350
2351 catch assert
2352 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2353
2354 set sysroot
2355 show sysroot
2356 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2357 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2358 an alias to "set sysroot".
2359
2360 info spu
2361 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2362 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2363 architecture.
2364
2365 * New native configurations
2366
2367 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2368
2369 set tdesc filename
2370 unset tdesc filename
2371 show tdesc filename
2372 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2373 not query the target for its built-in description.
2374
2375 * New targets
2376
2377 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2378 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2379 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2380
2381 * New remote packets
2382
2383 QPassSignals:
2384 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2385 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2386
2387 qXfer:features:read:
2388 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2389 features.
2390
2391 qXfer:spu:read:
2392 qXfer:spu:write:
2393 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2394 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2395
2396 qXfer:libraries:read:
2397 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2398 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2399 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2400 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2401
2402 * Removed targets
2403
2404 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2405
2406 alpha*-*-osf1*
2407 alpha*-*-osf2*
2408 d10v-*-*
2409 hppa*-*-hiux*
2410 i[34567]86-ncr-*
2411 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2412 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2413 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2414 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2415 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2416 i[34567]86-*-sco*
2417 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2418 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2419 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2420 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2421 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2422 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2423 i[34567]86-*-isc*
2424 m68*-cisco*-*
2425 m68*-tandem-*
2426 mips*-*-pe
2427 rs6000-*-lynxos*
2428 sh*-*-pe
2429
2430 * Other removed features
2431
2432 target abug
2433 target cpu32bug
2434 target est
2435 target rom68k
2436
2437 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2438
2439 target hms
2440 target e7000
2441 target sh3
2442 target sh3e
2443
2444 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2445 H8/300.
2446
2447 target ocd
2448
2449 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2450 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2451 interfaces.
2452
2453 DWARF 1 support
2454
2455 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2456 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2457
2458 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2459
2460 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2461 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2462 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2463 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2464
2465 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2466
2467 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2468 in debugging information.
2469
2470 Scheme support
2471
2472 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2473 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2474
2475 set mips stack-arg-size
2476 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2477
2478 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2479
2480 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2481
2482 * New targets
2483
2484 Xtensa xtensa-elf
2485 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2486
2487 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2488 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2489 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2490
2491 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2492 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2493 supported.
2494
2495 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2496 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2497
2498 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2499 stub provides the required support.
2500
2501 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2502 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2503
2504 * New commands
2505
2506 set substitute-path
2507 unset substitute-path
2508 show substitute-path
2509 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2510 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2511 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2512 between compilation and debugging.
2513
2514 set trace-commands
2515 show trace-commands
2516 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2517 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2518 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2519
2520 * REMOVED features
2521
2522 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2523
2524 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2525 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2526
2527 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2528
2529 * New remote packets
2530
2531 qSupported:
2532 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2533 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2534 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2535 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2536 target.
2537
2538 qXfer:auxv:read:
2539 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2540 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2541
2542 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2543 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2544 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2545
2546 vFlashErase:
2547 vFlashWrite:
2548 vFlashDone:
2549 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2550
2551 * Removed remote packets
2552
2553 qPart:auxv:read:
2554 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2555 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2556
2557 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2558
2559 * New targets
2560
2561 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2562
2563 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2564
2565 * New commands
2566
2567 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2568 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2569
2570 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2571
2572 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2573
2574 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2575 previously saved state.
2576
2577 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2578
2579 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2580
2581 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2582 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2583
2584 info forks List forks of the user program that
2585 are available to be debugged.
2586
2587 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2588 forks of the user program that are
2589 available to be debugged.
2590
2591 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2592 that are available to be debugged (and
2593 kill the forked process).
2594
2595 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2596 that are available to be debugged (and
2597 allow the process to continue).
2598
2599 * New architecture
2600
2601 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2602
2603 * Improved Windows host support
2604
2605 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2606 native console support, and remote communications using either
2607 network sockets or serial ports.
2608
2609 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2610
2611 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2612 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2613 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2614 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2615 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2616 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2617
2618 * REMOVED features
2619
2620 The ARM rdi-share module.
2621
2622 The Netware NLM debug server.
2623
2624 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2625
2626 * New native configurations
2627
2628 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2629 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2630
2631 * New targets
2632
2633 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2634
2635 * New command line options
2636
2637 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2638 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2639 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2640 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2641 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2642 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2643 with the --command (-x) option.
2644
2645 * Deprecated commands removed
2646
2647 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2648 removed:
2649
2650 Command Replacement
2651 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2652 othernames set arm disassembler
2653 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2654 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2655 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2656 regs info registers
2657
2658 * New BSD user-level threads support
2659
2660 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2661 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2662 configurations are:
2663
2664 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2665 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2666 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2667
2668 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2669 are not yet supported.
2670
2671 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2672 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2673
2674 * REMOVED configurations and files
2675
2676 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2677 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2678 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2679
2680 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2681
2682 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2683 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2684 behavior.
2685
2686 * VAX floating point support
2687
2688 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2689
2690 * User-defined command support
2691
2692 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2693 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2694 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2695
2696 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2697
2698 * New command line option
2699
2700 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2701 debugging.
2702
2703 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2704
2705 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2706 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2707 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2708 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2709 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2710
2711 * Internationalization
2712
2713 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2714 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2715 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2716
2717 * Ada
2718
2719 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2720 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2721 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2722
2723 * New native configurations
2724
2725 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2726
2727 * Remote 'p' packet
2728
2729 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2730 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2731
2732 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2733
2734 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2735 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2736 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2737 i386 application).
2738
2739 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2740 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2741 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2742 configurations:
2743
2744 hppa-*-hpux
2745 ia64-*-aix
2746 mips-*-irix*
2747 *-*-lynx
2748 mips-*-linux-gnu
2749 sds protocol
2750 xdr protocol
2751 powerpc bdm protocol
2752
2753 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2754 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2755
2756 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2757
2758 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2759 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2760 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2761 permanently REMOVED.
2762
2763 h8300-*-*
2764 mcore-*-*
2765 mn10300-*-*
2766 ns32k-*-*
2767 sh64-*-*
2768 v850-*-*
2769
2770 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2771
2772 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2773
2774 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2775 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2776 been fixed.
2777
2778 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2779
2780 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2781 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2782 IRIX long double values).
2783
2784 * VAX and "next"
2785
2786 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2787 command. This problem has been fixed.
2788
2789 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2790
2791 * Fix for ``many threads''
2792
2793 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2794 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2795 error message:
2796
2797 ptrace: No such process.
2798 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2799
2800 This problem has been fixed.
2801
2802 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2803
2804 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2805 GDB to dump core).
2806
2807 * New ``start'' command.
2808
2809 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2810
2811 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2812
2813 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2814 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2815 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2816
2817 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2818 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2819 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2820 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2821 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2822 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2823 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2824 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2825 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2826
2827 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2828
2829 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2830 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2831 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2832 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2833 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2834
2835 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2836 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2837 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2838
2839 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2840
2841 * New native configurations
2842
2843 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2844 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2845 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2846 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2847 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2848 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2849 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2850
2851 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2852
2853 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2854 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2855 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2856 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2857 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2858 work, was also included.
2859
2860 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2861 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2862
2863 h8300-*-*
2864 mcore-*-*
2865 mn10300-*-*
2866 ns32k-*-*
2867 sh64-*-*
2868 v850-*-*
2869 xstormy16-*-*
2870
2871 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2872 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2873
2874 * REMOVED configurations and files
2875
2876 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2877 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2878 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2879 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2880 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2881 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2882 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2883 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2884 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2885 sonymips mips-sony-*
2886 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2887
2888 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2889
2890 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2891
2892 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2893 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2894 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2895 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2896 with GDB".
2897
2898 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2899
2900 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2901 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2902 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2903 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2904 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2905 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2906 are created.
2907
2908 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2909
2910 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2911
2912 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2913 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2914 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2915
2916 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2917
2918 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2919 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2920
2921 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2922
2923 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2924 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2925 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2926
2927 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2928
2929 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2930 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2931
2932 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2933
2934 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2935 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2936 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2937
2938 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2939
2940 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2941 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2942 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2943
2944 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2945
2946 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2947
2948 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2949 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2950
2951 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2952
2953 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2954 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2955 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2956 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2957
2958 * Revised SPARC target
2959
2960 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2961 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2962 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2963 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2964 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2965
2966 * New C++ demangler
2967
2968 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2969 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2970 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2971 programs.
2972
2973 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2974
2975 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2976 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2977 encountered these.
2978
2979 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2980
2981 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2982 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2983 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2984 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2985 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2986 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2987 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2988 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2989 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2990
2991 * New native configurations
2992
2993 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2994 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2995 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2996 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2997 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2998
2999 * New debugging protocols
3000
3001 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3002
3003 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3004
3005 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3006 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3007 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3008
3009 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3010
3011 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3012 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3013 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3014 permanently REMOVED.
3015
3016 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3017 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3018 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3019 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3020 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3021 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3022 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3023 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3024 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3025 sonymips mips-sony-*
3026 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3027
3028 * REMOVED configurations and files
3029
3030 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3031 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3032 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3033 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3034 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3035 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3036 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3037 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3038 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3039 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3040 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3041 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3042 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3043 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3044 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3045 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3046 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3047
3048 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3049
3050 * Objective-C
3051
3052 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3053 integrated into GDB.
3054
3055 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3056
3057 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3058 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3059 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3060 backtraces.
3061
3062 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3063 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3064 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3065
3066 * Hosted file I/O.
3067
3068 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3069 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3070 remote protocol documentation for details.
3071
3072 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3073
3074 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3075 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3076 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3077 ppc32 on ppc64).
3078
3079 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3080
3081 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3082 per-thread variables.
3083
3084 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3085
3086 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3087 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3088
3089 * Separate debug info.
3090
3091 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3092 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3093 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3094 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3095 and optional debug files.
3096
3097 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3098
3099 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3100 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3101 debugger.
3102
3103 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3104 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3105
3106 * Java
3107
3108 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3109 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3110 considered "useable".
3111
3112 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3113
3114 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3115 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3116 kernel.
3117
3118 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3119
3120 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3121 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3122
3123 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3124
3125 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3126 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3127 command.
3128
3129 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3130
3131 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3132 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3133
3134 * Profiling support
3135
3136 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3137 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3138 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3139 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3140 data, for more informative profiling results.
3141
3142 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3143
3144 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3145 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3146 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3147
3148 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3149 removed.
3150
3151 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3152 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3153 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3154 in a subsequent -var-update.
3155
3156 * New native configurations.
3157
3158 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3159
3160 * Multi-arched targets.
3161
3162 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3163 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3164
3165 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3166
3167 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3168 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3169 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3170 permanently REMOVED.
3171
3172 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3173 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3174 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3175 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3176 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3177 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3178 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3179 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3180 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3181 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3182 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3183 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3184
3185 * REMOVED configurations and files
3186
3187 V850EA ISA
3188 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3189 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3190 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3191 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3192 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3193 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3194 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3195 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3196 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3197 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3198 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3199 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3200 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3201
3202 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3203
3204 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3205 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3206 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3207 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3208 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3209
3210 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3211
3212 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3213
3214 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3215 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3216 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3217 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3218 shared libs like mad''.
3219
3220 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3221
3222 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3223 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3224 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3225 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3226
3227 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3228
3229 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3230 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3231 they expand.
3232
3233 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3234 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3235
3236 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3237 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3238
3239 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3240 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3241 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3242 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3243
3244 * Multi-arched targets.
3245
3246 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3247 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3248 NEC V850 v850-*-*
3249 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3250 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3251 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3252
3253 * New targets.
3254
3255 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3256
3257
3258 * New native configurations
3259
3260 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3261 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3262 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3263 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3264
3265 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3266
3267 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3268 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3269 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3270 permanently REMOVED.
3271
3272 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3273 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3274 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3275 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3276 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3277 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3278 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3279 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3280 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3281 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3282 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3283 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3284 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3285
3286 * OBSOLETE languages
3287
3288 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3289
3290 * REMOVED configurations and files
3291
3292 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3293 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3294 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3295 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3296 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3297
3298 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3299
3300 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3301
3302 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3303 commands. The default is 1024.
3304
3305 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3306
3307 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3308
3309 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3310
3311 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3312 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3313 from a file into memory (restore).
3314
3315 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3316
3317 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3318 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3319 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3320
3321 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3322
3323 * New targets.
3324
3325 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3326
3327 * Bug fixes
3328
3329 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3330 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3331 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3332
3333 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3334 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3335 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3336
3337 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3338 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3339 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3340
3341 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3342 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3343 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3344
3345 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3346
3347 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3348
3349 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3350 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3351 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3352 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3353 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3354 (notably embedded) targets.
3355
3356 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3357
3358 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3359 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3360 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3361 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3362
3363 * New command line option
3364
3365 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3366
3367 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3368
3369 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3370 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3371 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3372 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3373 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3374 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3375 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3376 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3377 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3378 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3379
3380 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3381
3382 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3383 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3384
3385 * New native configurations
3386
3387 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3388 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3389 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3390 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3391
3392 * New targets
3393
3394 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3395
3396 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3397
3398 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3399 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3400 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3401 permanently REMOVED.
3402
3403 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3404 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3405 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3406 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3407 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3408
3409 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3410
3411 * REMOVED configurations and files
3412
3413 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3414 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3415 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3416 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3417 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3418 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3419 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3420 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3421 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3422 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3423 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3424 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3425 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3426
3427 * Changes to command line processing
3428
3429 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3430 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3431
3432 * Changes to key bindings
3433
3434 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3435
3436 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3437
3438 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3439
3440 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3441 corrupted.
3442
3443 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3444
3445 Numerous documentation fixes.
3446
3447 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3448
3449 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3450
3451 * New native configurations
3452
3453 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3454 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3455 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3456 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3457 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3458 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3459
3460 * New targets
3461
3462 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3463 CRIS cris-axis
3464 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3465
3466 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3467
3468 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3469 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3470 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3471 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3472 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3473 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3474 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3475 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3476 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3477 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3478 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3479 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3480 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3481 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3482
3483 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3484 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3485
3486 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3487 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3488 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3489 permanently REMOVED.
3490
3491 * REMOVED configurations and files
3492
3493 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3494 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3495 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3496 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3497 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3498 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
3499
3500 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3501
3502 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3503 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3504 present.
3505
3506 * Other news:
3507
3508 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3509
3510 * The MI enabled by default.
3511
3512 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3513 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3514 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3515 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3516 which is now deprecated.
3517
3518 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3519
3520 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3521 main features are supported:
3522
3523 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3524
3525 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3526 extension;
3527
3528 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3529
3530 - a Pascal expression parser.
3531
3532 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3533
3534 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3535
3536 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3537
3538 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3539 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3540
3541 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3542
3543 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3544
3545 * Changes in completion.
3546
3547 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3548 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3549 users expect at the shell prompt.
3550
3551 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3552 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3553 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3554 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3555 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3556 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3557 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3558
3559 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3560
3561 * New platform-independent commands:
3562
3563 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3564 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3565 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3566
3567 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3568
3569 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3570 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3571 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3572
3573 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3574
3575 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3576 multi-threaded programs though.
3577
3578 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3579
3580 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3581
3582 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3583 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3584 supported.)
3585
3586 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3587
3588 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3589 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3590 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3591 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3592 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3593 registers.
3594
3595 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3596 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3597 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3598
3599 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3600
3601 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3602 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3603
3604 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3605 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3606 IDT.
3607
3608 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3609 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3610 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3611 a given linear address.
3612
3613 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3614 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3615 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3616
3617 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3618
3619 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3620
3621 * Changes in documentation.
3622
3623 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3624 Documentation License.
3625
3626 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3627 manual.
3628
3629 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3630
3631 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3632 manual.
3633
3634 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3635 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3636 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3637
3638 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3639
3640 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3641 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3642 contents of this file.
3643
3644 * gdba.el deleted
3645
3646 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3647
3648 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3649
3650 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3651
3652 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3653 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3654 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3655 greater level of detail.
3656
3657 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3658
3659 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3660 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3661 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3662 written.
3663
3664 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3665
3666 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3667 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3668 machines ``out of the box''.
3669
3670 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3671 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3672 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3673 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3674 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3675
3676 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3677 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3678 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3679 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3680 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3681
3682 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3683 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3684 also works.
3685
3686 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3687 GDB.
3688
3689 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3690 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3691 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3692 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3693
3694 * New native configurations
3695
3696 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3697 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3698
3699 * New targets
3700
3701 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3702 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3703 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3704 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3705
3706 * OBSOLETE configurations
3707
3708 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3709 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3710 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3711 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3712 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3713
3714 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3715 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3716 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3717 be permanently REMOVED.
3718
3719 * Gould support removed
3720
3721 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3722
3723 * New features for SVR4
3724
3725 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3726 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3727 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3728
3729 * Many C++ enhancements
3730
3731 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3732 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3733
3734 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3735
3736 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3737 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3738 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3739 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3740
3741 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3742 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3743
3744 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3745
3746 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3747 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3748 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3749
3750 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3751 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3752
3753 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3754
3755 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3756 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3757 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3758
3759 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3760
3761 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3762 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3763 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3764
3765 * ``apropos'' command added.
3766
3767 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3768 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3769 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3770
3771 * New MI interface
3772
3773 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3774 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3775 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3776 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3777 enabled by configuring with:
3778
3779 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3780
3781 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3782
3783 * New native configurations
3784
3785 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3786 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3787 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3788
3789 * New targets
3790
3791 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3792 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3793 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3794
3795 * OBSOLETE configurations
3796
3797 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3798
3799 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3800 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3801 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3802 be permanently REMOVED.
3803
3804 * ANSI/ISO C
3805
3806 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3807 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3808 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3809 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3810 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3811 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3812 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3813 already.
3814
3815 * Readline 2.2
3816
3817 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3818
3819 * set extension-language
3820
3821 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3822 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3823 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3824 set extension-language .c c++
3825 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3826 and their associated languages.
3827
3828 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3829
3830 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3831 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3832 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3833
3834 set processor NAME
3835
3836 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3837 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3838
3839 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3840 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3841 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3842 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3843 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3844 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3845 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3846 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3847 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3848 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3849 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3850
3851 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3852 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3853 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3854 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3855
3856 * HP-UX support
3857
3858 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3859 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3860 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3861 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3862 for xdb and dbx commands.
3863
3864 * Catchpoints
3865
3866 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3867 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3868 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3869
3870 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3871 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3872 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3873
3874 * Debugging across forks
3875
3876 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3877 in the inferior.
3878
3879 * TUI
3880
3881 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3882 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3883 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3884
3885 * GDB remote protocol additions
3886
3887 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3888 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3889 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3890 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3891
3892 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3893 full 64-bit address. The command
3894
3895 set remoteaddresssize 32
3896
3897 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3898 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3899 will be discarded.
3900
3901 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3902 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3903
3904 maint packet heythere
3905
3906 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3907 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3908 time.
3909
3910 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3911 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3912 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3913
3914 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3915
3916 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3917 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3918 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3919
3920 * mask-address variable for Mips
3921
3922 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3923 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3924 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3925
3926 * Higher serial baud rates
3927
3928 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3929 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3930 to achieve all of these rates.)
3931
3932 * i960 simulator
3933
3934 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3935 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3936
3937
3938 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3939
3940 * New native configurations
3941
3942 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3943 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3944 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3945 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3946 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3947 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3948 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3949
3950 * New targets
3951
3952 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3953 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3954 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3955 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3956 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3957 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3958 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3959 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3960 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3961 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3962 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3963
3964 * New debugging protocols
3965
3966 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3967 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3968 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3969 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3970 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3971 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3972
3973 * DWARF 2
3974
3975 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3976 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3977 information.
3978
3979 * Java frontend
3980
3981 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3982 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3983
3984 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3985
3986 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3987 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3988 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3989
3990 * Live range splitting
3991
3992 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3993 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3994 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3995
3996 * Hurd support
3997
3998 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3999 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4000
4001 * ARM Thumb support
4002
4003 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4004 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4005 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4006 accordingly.
4007
4008 * MIPS16 support
4009
4010 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4011 instruction set.
4012
4013 * Overlay support
4014
4015 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4016 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4017 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4018 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4019 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4020 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4021
4022 * info symbol
4023
4024 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4025 the symbol at the specified address.
4026
4027 * Trace support
4028
4029 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4030 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4031 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4032 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4033 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4034
4035 * MIPS simulator
4036
4037 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4038 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4039 of most MIPS variants.
4040
4041 * Sparc simulator
4042
4043 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4044 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4045 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4046
4047 * set architecture
4048
4049 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4050 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4051 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4052 the possible architectures.
4053
4054 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4055
4056 * New native configurations
4057
4058 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4059 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4060 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4061 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4062 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4063 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4064
4065 * New targets
4066
4067 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4068 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4069 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4070 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4071 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4072 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4073 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4074
4075 * PowerPC simulator
4076
4077 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4078 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4079 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4080 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4081 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4082
4083 * Solaris 2.5
4084
4085 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4086
4087 * Windows 95/NT native
4088
4089 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4090 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4091 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4092 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4093 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4094
4095 * dont-repeat command
4096
4097 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4098 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4099 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4100 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4101
4102 * Send break instead of ^C
4103
4104 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4105 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4106 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4107
4108 * Remote protocol timeout
4109
4110 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4111 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4112 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4113
4114 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4115
4116 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4117 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4118 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4119 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4120 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4121
4122 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4123 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4124 automatically on hpux10.
4125
4126 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4127
4128 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4129
4130 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4131
4132 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4133 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4134 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4135 every character. The default value is 1050.
4136
4137 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4138
4139 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4140 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4141 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4142 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4143 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4144 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4145
4146 * Speedups for remote debugging
4147
4148 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4149 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4150 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4151
4152 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4153
4154 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4155 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4156
4157 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4158
4159 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4160
4161 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4162 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4163
4164 * Remote targets use caching
4165
4166 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4167 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4168 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4169 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4170 off' turns the the data cache off.
4171
4172 * Remote targets may have threads
4173
4174 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4175 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4176 gdb/remote.c for details.
4177
4178 * NetROM support
4179
4180 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4181 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4182 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4183 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4184 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4185 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4186 sequence is something like
4187
4188 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4189 load <prog>
4190 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4191
4192 * Macintosh host
4193
4194 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4195 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4196 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4197 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4198 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4199 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4200 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4201 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4202
4203 * Autoconf
4204
4205 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4206 but does simplify configuration and building.
4207
4208 * hpux10
4209
4210 GDB now supports hpux10.
4211
4212 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4213
4214 * New native configurations
4215
4216 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4217 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4218 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4219 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4220
4221 * New targets
4222
4223 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4224 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4225 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4226 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4227 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4228
4229 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4230
4231 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4232 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4233 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4234 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4235 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4236
4237 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4238
4239 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4240 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4241 trivial example:
4242 define adder
4243 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4244
4245 To execute the command use:
4246 adder 1 2 3
4247
4248 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4249 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4250 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4251
4252 * New `if' and `while' commands
4253
4254 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4255 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4256 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4257 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4258 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4259 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4260 if the expression is zero.
4261
4262 * Fortran source language mode
4263
4264 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4265 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4266 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4267 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4268 Fortran compilers.
4269
4270 * Better HPUX support
4271
4272 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4273 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4274 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4275 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4276 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4277
4278 adb -w a.out
4279 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4280 control-d
4281
4282 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4283 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4284
4285 adb -w a.out
4286 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4287 control-d
4288
4289 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4290 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4291 external linkage.
4292
4293 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4294 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4295
4296 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4297
4298 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4299 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4300 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4301 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4302 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4303 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4304
4305 * New DOS host serial code
4306
4307 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4308 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4309 a PC's serial port.
4310
4311 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4312
4313 * New "complete" command
4314
4315 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4316 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4317
4318 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4319
4320 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4321 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4322
4323 * Breakpoint hit counts
4324
4325 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4326 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4327 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4328 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4329 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4330 that breakpoint.
4331
4332 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4333
4334 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4335 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4336 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4337
4338 * Shared library breakpoints
4339
4340 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4341 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4342
4343 * Hardware watchpoints
4344
4345 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4346 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4347
4348 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4349
4350 * Annotations
4351
4352 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4353 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4354
4355 * Improved Irix 5 support
4356
4357 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4358
4359 * Improved HPPA support
4360
4361 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4362
4363 * New native configurations
4364
4365 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4366 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4367 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4368 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4369
4370 * New targets
4371
4372 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4373 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4374 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4375
4376 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4377
4378 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4379 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4380
4381 * Fixes
4382
4383 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4384 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4385
4386 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4387
4388 * Irix 5 is now supported
4389
4390 * HPPA support
4391
4392 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4393 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4394 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4395 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4396 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4397
4398
4399 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4400
4401 * User visible changes:
4402
4403 * Remote Debugging
4404
4405 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4406 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4407 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4408 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4409 debugging info for the mips target).
4410
4411 * DEC Alpha native support
4412
4413 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4414 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4415 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4416 Alpha-specific notes.
4417
4418 * Preliminary thread implementation
4419
4420 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4421
4422 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4423
4424 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4425 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4426 for details).
4427
4428 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4429
4430 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4431 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4432 call methods, ...etc.
4433
4434 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4435
4436 * User visible changes:
4437
4438 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4439 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4440 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4441 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4442
4443 Filename completion now works.
4444
4445 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4446 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4447 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4448
4449 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4450 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4451 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4452 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4453 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4454
4455 * DEC alpha support
4456
4457 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4458 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4459
4460
4461 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4462
4463 * Testsuite
4464
4465 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4466 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4467 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4468
4469 * C++ demangling
4470
4471 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4472 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4473 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4474 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4475 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4476
4477 * Simulators
4478
4479 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4480 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4481 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4482
4483 * New targets supported
4484
4485 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4486 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4487 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4488 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4489 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4490
4491 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4492 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4493 GO32 memory extender.
4494
4495 * New remote protocols
4496
4497 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4498
4499 * New source languages supported
4500
4501 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4502 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4503 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4504
4505
4506 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4507
4508 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4509
4510 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4511 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4512 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4513 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4514 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4515 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4516
4517 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4518
4519 * Faster and better demangling
4520
4521 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4522 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4523 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4524 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4525 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4526 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4527 symbol lookups.
4528
4529 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4530 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4531 compiler does not actually implement.
4532
4533 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4534
4535 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4536 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4537 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4538 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4539 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4540 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4541 fix.
4542
4543 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4544 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4545
4546 * Improved configure script
4547
4548 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4549 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4550 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4551 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4552
4553 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4554 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4555 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4556 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4557 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4558 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4559
4560 * Documentation improvements
4561
4562 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4563 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4564 before submitting changes.
4565
4566 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4567 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4568 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4569 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4570 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4571
4572 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4573 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4574 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4575 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4576 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4577 around this problem.
4578
4579 * New features
4580
4581 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4582 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4583 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4584 the target program.
4585
4586 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4587 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4588
4589 * New native hosts supported
4590
4591 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4592 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4593
4594 * New targets supported
4595
4596 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4597
4598 * New file formats supported
4599
4600 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4601 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4602
4603 * Major bug fixes
4604
4605 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4606
4607 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4608 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4609
4610 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4611 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4612 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4613
4614 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4615 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4616
4617 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4618 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4619 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4620 libraries.
4621
4622 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4623 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4624 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4625 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4626 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4627
4628 * Internal improvements
4629
4630 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4631 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4632
4633 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4634 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4635 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4636 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4637 shared code that handles any of them.
4638
4639 * New command line options
4640
4641 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4642
4643 * Mmalloc licensing
4644
4645 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4646 General Public License.
4647
4648 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4649
4650 * Host/native/target split
4651
4652 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4653 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4654 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4655 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4656 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4657
4658 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4659 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4660 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4661 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4662 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4663 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4664 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4665
4666 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4667 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4668 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4669
4670 * New hosts supported
4671
4672 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4673 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4674 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4675
4676 * New targets supported
4677
4678 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4679 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4680
4681 * New native hosts supported
4682
4683 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4684 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4685 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4686
4687 * New file formats supported
4688
4689 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4690 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4691 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4692
4693 * New commands
4694
4695 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4696 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4697 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4698
4699 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4700
4701 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4702 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4703 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4704 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4705
4706 * C++ improvements
4707
4708 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4709 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4710 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4711
4712 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4713
4714 * Major bug fixes
4715
4716 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4717 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4718 by the compiler.
4719
4720 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4721 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4722
4723 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4724 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4725 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4726 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4727 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4728 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4729
4730 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4731 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4732 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4733 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4734
4735 * AMD 29k support
4736
4737 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4738 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4739 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4740 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4741 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4742
4743 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4744 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4745 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4746 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4747
4748 * Remote interfaces
4749
4750 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4751 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4752 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4753 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4754 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4755 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4756 each instruction being stepped through.
4757
4758 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4759 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4760
4761 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4762 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4763 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4764 processor with a serial port.
4765
4766 * Configuration
4767
4768 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4769 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4770 supported, and what files each one uses.
4771
4772 * Library changes
4773
4774 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4775 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4776 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4777 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4778
4779 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4780 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4781 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4782 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4783
4784 * Documentation
4785
4786 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4787 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4788 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4789 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4790 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4791 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4792
4793 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4794
4795
4796 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4797
4798 * Better support for C++ function names
4799
4800 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4801 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4802 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4803 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4804 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4805
4806 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4807 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4808 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4809 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4810 for the list of formats.
4811
4812 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4813
4814 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4815 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4816 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4817 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4818 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4819 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4820 this problem.)
4821
4822 * New 'maintenance' command
4823
4824 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4825 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4826 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4827
4828 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4829 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4830 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4831 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4832 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4833 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4834
4835 The following commands are new:
4836
4837 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4838 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4839 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4840
4841 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4842
4843 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4844 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4845 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4846 read after argv processing.
4847
4848 * New hosts supported
4849
4850 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4851
4852 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4853
4854 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4855 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4856 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4857 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4858 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4859 It costs extra.
4860
4861 * New targets supported
4862
4863 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4864
4865 * More smarts about finding #include files
4866
4867 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4868 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4869 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4870 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4871 the one that contains your sources.
4872
4873 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4874 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4875 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4876
4877 * Interesting infernals change
4878
4879 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4880 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4881 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4882 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4883
4884 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4885
4886 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4887 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4888 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4889
4890 See the ChangeLog for details.
4891
4892 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4893
4894 * New machines supported (host and target)
4895
4896 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4897
4898 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4899
4900 * New malloc package
4901
4902 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4903 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4904 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4905 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4906 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4907 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4908
4909 * info proc
4910
4911 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4912 'help info proc' for details.
4913
4914 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4915
4916 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4917 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4918 possible.
4919
4920 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4921
4922 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4923 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4924 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4925 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4926 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4927 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4928
4929 * Cross byte order fixes
4930
4931 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4932 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4933
4934 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4935
4936 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4937 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4938 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4939 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4940 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4941 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4942 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4943 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4944 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4945 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4946
4947 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4948 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4949 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4950 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4951
4952 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4953 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4954 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4955 use is:
4956
4957 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4958
4959 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4960 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4961 shared across multiple host platforms.
4962
4963 * longjmp() handling
4964
4965 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4966 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4967 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4968 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4969
4970 * Solaris 2.0
4971
4972 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4973 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4974 reading symbols.
4975
4976 * Bug fixes
4977
4978 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4979 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4980 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4981
4982 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4983
4984 * New machines supported (host and target)
4985
4986 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4987 (except core files)
4988 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4989 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4990
4991 * New machines supported (target)
4992
4993 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4994
4995 * C++ support
4996
4997 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4998 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4999 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5000
5001 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5002 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5003 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5004 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5005 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5006 released.
5007
5008 * New features for SVR4
5009
5010 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5011 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5012 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5013
5014 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5015 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5016 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5017
5018 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5019 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5020
5021 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5022
5023 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5024 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5025 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5026 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5027 same code linked statically.
5028
5029 * New Getopt
5030
5031 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5032 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5033 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5034 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5035 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5036 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5037
5038 * Bugs fixed
5039
5040 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5041 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5042 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5043
5044
5045 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5046
5047 * New machines supported (host and target)
5048
5049 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5050 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5051 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5052
5053 * Almost SCO Unix support
5054
5055 We had hoped to support:
5056 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5057 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5058 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5059 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5060
5061 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5062
5063 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5064 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5065 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5066 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5067 reqired (if any).
5068
5069 * New Readline
5070
5071 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5072 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5073 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5074
5075 * Bugs fixed
5076
5077 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5078 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5079 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5080
5081 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5082
5083 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5084 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5085 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5086
5087 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5088 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5089 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5090 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5091 version 2.
5092
5093 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5094 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5095 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5096 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5097 situation somewhat.
5098
5099 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5100 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5101 methods.
5102
5103 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5104 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5105 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5106
5107
5108 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5109
5110 * Improved configuration
5111
5112 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5113 Porting BFD is simpler.
5114
5115 * Stepping improved
5116
5117 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5118 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5119 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5120 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5121
5122 * Bug fixing
5123
5124 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5125
5126 * New host supported (not target)
5127
5128 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5129
5130
5131 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5132
5133 * Multiple source language support
5134
5135 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5136 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5137 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5138 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5139 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5140 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5141
5142 * GDB and Modula-2
5143
5144 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5145 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5146 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5147 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5148
5149 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5150 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5151 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5152
5153 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5154 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5155
5156 * set write on/off
5157
5158 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5159 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5160 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5161 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5162 effect immediately.
5163
5164 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5165
5166 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5167 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5168 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5169 examining core files.
5170
5171 * set listsize
5172
5173 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5174 The default is 10.
5175
5176 * New machines supported (host and target)
5177
5178 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5179 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5180 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5181
5182 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5183
5184 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5185
5186 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5187
5188 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5189 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5190 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5191
5192 * New remote interfaces
5193
5194 AMD 29000 Adapt
5195 AMD 29000 Minimon
5196
5197
5198 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5199
5200 * New Facilities
5201
5202 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5203
5204 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5205 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5206 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5207 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5208 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5209 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5210 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5211 stub on the target system.
5212
5213 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5214
5215 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5216 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5217 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5218
5219 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5220 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5221
5222
5223 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5224
5225 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5226 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5227
5228 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5229 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5230 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5231
5232 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5233 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5234 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5235 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5236
5237 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5238 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5239 it is already running. Default is ON.
5240
5241 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5242 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5243 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5244 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5245 Default is ON.
5246
5247 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5248 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5249 or the value of the environment variable
5250 GDBHISTFILE.
5251
5252 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5253 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5254 HISTSIZE.
5255
5256 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5257 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5258 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5259
5260 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5261 history expansion will be performed on
5262 command line input. The default is OFF.
5263
5264 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5265 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5266 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5267
5268 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5269 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5270 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5271 variable TERM.
5272
5273 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5274 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5275 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5276 variable TERM.
5277
5278 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5279 ``set width'' instead.
5280
5281 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5282 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5283 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5284 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5285
5286 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5287 is OFF.
5288
5289 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5290 "raw" form if off.
5291
5292 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5293 like instructions.
5294
5295 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5296
5297
5298 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5299
5300 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5301 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5302 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5303 window.
5304
5305
5306 * Support for Shared Libraries
5307
5308 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5309 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5310 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5311 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5312 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5313 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5314 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5315 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5316
5317 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5318 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5319 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5320
5321 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5322
5323
5324 * Watchpoints
5325
5326 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5327 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5328 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5329 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5330 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5331 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5332
5333 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5334
5335 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5336
5337 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5338 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5339 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5340
5341
5342 * C++ multiple inheritance
5343
5344 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5345 for C++ programs.
5346
5347 * C++ exception handling
5348
5349 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5350 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5351 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5352 handler's context).
5353
5354 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5355 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5356 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5357
5358 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5359 current stack frame.
5360
5361
5362 * Minor command changes
5363
5364 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5365 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5366 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5367
5368 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5369 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5370 frames without printing.
5371
5372 * New directory command
5373
5374 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5375 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5376 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5377 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5378 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5379
5380 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5381
5382 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5383 for more details.
5384
5385 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5386 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5387 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5388 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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