Move gdb/signals.h to common-defs.h
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.8
5
6 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
7 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
8 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
9 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
10 at resume time.
11
12 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
13 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
14 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
15 switched threads meanwhile.
16
17 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
18
19 * New command line options
20
21 -D data-directory
22 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
23
24 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
25 as specified in ISO C99.
26
27 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
28 with or without disassembly.
29
30 * Guile scripting
31
32 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
33 available is determined at configure time.
34 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
35 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
36
37 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
38
39 guile [code]
40 gu [code]
41 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
42
43 guile-repl
44 gr
45 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
46
47 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
48 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
49
50 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
51 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
52
53 * New options
54
55 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
56 show print symbol-loading
57 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
58 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
59 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
60 becomes less useful.
61
62 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
63 show guile print-stack
64 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
65
66 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
67 show auto-load guile-scripts
68 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
69
70 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
71 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
72 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
73 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
74 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
75 usage of this option.
76
77 set auto-connect-native-target
78
79 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
80 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
81 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
82
83 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
84 show record btrace replay-memory-access
85 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
86
87 maint set target-async (on|off)
88 maint show target-async
89 This controls whether GDB targets operate in syncronous or
90 asyncronous mode. Normally the default is asyncronous, if it is
91 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
92 occurring only in syncronous mode.
93
94 set mi-async (on|off)
95 show mi-async
96 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
97 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
98
99 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
100 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
101
102 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
103 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
104 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
105 "set target-async on" command.
106
107 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
108
109 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
110 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
111 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
112 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
113 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
114
115 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
116 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
117 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
118
119 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
120 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
121 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
122 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
123 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
124 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
125 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
126
127 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
128 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
129
130 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
131 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
132 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
133
134 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
135 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
136 memory or registers.
137
138 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
139
140 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
141 remote. It now works with all targets.
142
143 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
144 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
145 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
146 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
147 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
148 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
149 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
150 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
151 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
152 target-stack".
153
154 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
155 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
156 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
157
158 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
159
160 * Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
161 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
162 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
163
164 * New remote packets
165
166 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
167 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
168 branch trace incrementally.
169
170 * Python Scripting
171
172 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
173 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
174 available.
175 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
176 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
177 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
178 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
179 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
180
181 * New targets
182 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
183
184 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
185 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
186 its alias "share", instead.
187
188 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
189 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
190 instead.
191
192 * MI changes
193
194 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
195 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
196 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
197 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
198 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
199 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
200 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
201 commands and CLI execution commands.
202
203 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
204
205 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
206 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
207 recording has been added.
208
209 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
210
211 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
212 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
213
214 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
215 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
216 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
217 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
218 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
219 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
220 "void".
221
222 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
223
224 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
225
226 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
227 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
228 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
229 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
230
231 (gdb) p $rax
232 $1 = <not saved>
233
234 (gdb) info registers rax
235 rax <not saved>
236
237 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
238 "*value not available*".
239
240 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
241 to binaries.
242
243 * Python scripting
244
245 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
246 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
247 ** Line tables representation has been added.
248 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
249 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
250 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
251
252 * New targets
253
254 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
255 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
256 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
257
258 * Removed native configurations
259
260 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
261 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
262
263 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
264 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
265 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
266 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
267 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
268 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
269 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
270
271 * New commands:
272 catch rethrow
273 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
274 maint check-psymtabs
275 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
276 maint check-symtabs
277 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
278 maint expand-symtabs
279 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
280
281 show configuration
282 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
283
284 maint set|show per-command
285 maint set|show per-command space
286 maint set|show per-command time
287 maint set|show per-command symtab
288 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
289
290 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
291 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
292 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
293 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
294 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
295
296 info exceptions
297 info exceptions REGEXP
298 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
299 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
300 are listed.
301
302 * New options
303
304 set debug symfile off|on
305 show debug symfile
306 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
307 symbol tables within those files
308
309 set print raw frame-arguments
310 show print raw frame-arguments
311 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
312 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
313
314 set remote trace-status-packet
315 show remote trace-status-packet
316 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
317
318 set debug nios2
319 show debug nios2
320 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
321
322 set range-stepping
323 show range-stepping
324 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
325
326 set startup-with-shell
327 show startup-with-shell
328 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
329 directly.
330
331 set code-cache
332 show code-cache
333 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
334 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
335
336 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
337 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
338 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
339 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
340 "set height 0".
341
342 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
343 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
344 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
345
346 * New command-line options
347 --configuration
348 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
349
350 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
351 buffer in Common Trace Format.
352
353 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
354 GDB command gcore.
355
356 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
357
358 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
359 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
360
361 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
362 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
363
364 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
365 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
366 due to an uncaught signal.
367
368 * MI changes
369
370 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
371 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
372 command, which should contain "language-option".
373
374 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
375 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
376
377 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
378 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
379 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
380 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
381 "undefined-command-error-code".
382
383 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
384 Trace Format now.
385
386 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
387
388 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
389 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
390 are displayed.
391
392 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
393 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
394
395 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
396 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
397 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
398
399 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
400 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
401 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
402 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
403 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
404 "exec-run-start-option".
405
406 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
407 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
408
409 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
410 the new "info exceptions" command.
411
412 * New system-wide configuration scripts
413 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
414 configuration scripts for the following systems:
415 ** ElinOS
416 ** Wind River Linux
417
418 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
419 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
420 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
421 below.
422
423 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
424 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
425
426 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
427 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
428 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
429
430 * New remote packets
431
432 vCont;r
433
434 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
435 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
436 involvemement at each single-step.
437
438 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
439 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
440 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
441 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
442 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
443 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
444 speedup.
445
446 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
447
448 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
449 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
450
451 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
452 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
453 trace state variables.
454
455 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
456 target.
457
458 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
459 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
460
461 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
462
463 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
464 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
465 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
466 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
467
468 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
469
470 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
471 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
472 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
473 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
474
475 set|show record full insn-number-max
476 set|show record full stop-at-limit
477 set|show record full memory-query
478
479 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
480 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
481 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
482 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
483 This new recording method can be enabled using:
484
485 record btrace
486
487 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
488 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
489
490 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
491 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
492 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
493
494 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
495 instruction granularity
496
497 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
498 function granularity
499
500 * New native configurations
501
502 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
503 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
504 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
505 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
506
507 * New targets
508
509 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
510 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
511 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
512 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
513 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
514
515 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
516 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
517 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
518 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
519 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
520 --data-directory command-line option.
521
522 * New command line options:
523
524 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
525 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
526
527 * Removed command line options
528
529 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
530 Emacs.
531
532 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
533 type formatting.
534
535 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
536
537 * Python scripting
538
539 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
540
541 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
542
543 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
544
545 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
546
547 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
548 of architecture in the Python API.
549
550 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
551 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
552
553 * New Python-based convenience functions:
554
555 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
556 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
557 ** $_strlen(str)
558 ** $_regex(str, regex)
559
560 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
561 given an argument.
562
563 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
564 default for GCC since November 2000.
565
566 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
567
568 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
569 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
570
571 * New configure options
572
573 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
574 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
575 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
576 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
577 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
578 options allow the user to override that default.
579 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
580 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
581 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
582
583 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
584
585 catch signal
586 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
587 conditions to be attached.
588
589 maint info bfds
590 List the BFDs known to GDB.
591
592 python-interactive [command]
593 pi [command]
594 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
595 and print the result of expressions.
596
597 py [command]
598 "py" is a new alias for "python".
599
600 enable type-printer [name]...
601 disable type-printer [name]...
602 Enable or disable type printers.
603
604 * Removed commands
605
606 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
607 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
608 instead.
609
610 * New options
611
612 set print type methods (on|off)
613 show print type methods
614 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
615 The default is to show them.
616
617 set print type typedefs (on|off)
618 show print type typedefs
619 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
620 The default is to show them.
621
622 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
623 show filename-display
624 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
625 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
626
627 set trace-buffer-size
628 show trace-buffer-size
629 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
630
631 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
632 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
633 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
634
635 set debug aarch64
636 show debug aarch64
637 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
638 The default is off.
639
640 set debug coff-pe-read
641 show debug coff-pe-read
642 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
643 exported symbols.
644
645 set debug mach-o
646 show debug mach-o
647 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
648 processing.
649
650 set debug notification
651 show debug notification
652 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
653
654 * MI changes
655
656 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
657 "=cmd-param-changed".
658 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
659 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
660 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
661 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
662 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
663 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
664 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
665 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
666 "=memory-changed".
667 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
668 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
669 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
670 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
671 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
672 library load/unload events.
673 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
674 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
675 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
676 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
677 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
678 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
679 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
680 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
681
682 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
683 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
684 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
685 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
686
687 * New remote packets
688
689 QTBuffer:size
690 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
691 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
692
693 Qbtrace:bts
694 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
695 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
696 qSupported query.
697
698 Qbtrace:off
699 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
700 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
701
702 qXfer:btrace:read
703 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
704 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
705
706 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
707
708 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
709 for more x32 ABI info.
710
711 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
712
713 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
714
715 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
716 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
717 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
718 "info os files" lists file descriptors
719 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
720 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
721 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
722 "info os msg" lists message queues
723 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
724
725 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
726 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
727 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
728 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
729 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
730 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
731
732 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
733 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
734 record/replay support.
735
736 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
737
738 * Python scripting
739
740 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
741 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
742
743 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
744
745 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
746 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
747
748 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
749
750 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
751 the source at which the symbol was defined.
752
753 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
754 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
755 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
756 symbol's value.
757
758 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
759 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
760
761 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
762 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
763 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
764
765 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
766 object associated with a PC value.
767
768 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
769 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
770
771 * Go language support.
772 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
773 language.
774
775 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
776 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
777
778 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
779 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
780
781 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
782 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
783 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
784 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
785 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
786 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
787
788 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
789 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
790 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
791 build/libcpp/expr.c.
792
793 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
794 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
795
796 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
797 since December 2007.
798
799 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
800 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
801 command does. For instance:
802
803 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
804
805 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
806 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
807 created, using the "condition" command.
808
809 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
810 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
811
812 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
813
814 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
815 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
816 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
817 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
818 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
819 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
820 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
821 files with older .gdb_index sections.
822
823 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
824 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
825 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
826 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
827 the .gdb_index section.
828
829 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
830
831 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
832 target.
833
834 * MI changes
835
836 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
837
838 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
839
840 * New commands
841
842 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
843 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
844 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
845
846 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
847 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
848
849 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
850 several hits.
851
852 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
853 C++ and Java objects.
854
855 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
856 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
857 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
858 configured with '--with-python'.
859
860 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
861 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
862 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
863 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
864 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
865 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
866 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
867
868 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
869 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
870 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
871 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
872
873 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
874 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
875 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
876 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
877
878 ** "set print symbol"
879 "show print symbol"
880 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
881 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
882 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
883
884 * Deprecated commands
885
886 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
887 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
888
889 * New targets
890
891 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
892 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
893
894 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
895 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
896 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
897 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
898 evaluates to true.
899
900 * New options
901
902 set mips compression
903 show mips compression
904 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
905 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
906 mips16
907 micromips
908 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
909
910 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
911 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
912 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
913 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
914 available mode.
915 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
916 target.
917
918 set auto-load off
919 Disable auto-loading globally.
920
921 show auto-load
922 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
923
924 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
925 show auto-load gdb-scripts
926 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
927
928 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
929 show auto-load python-scripts
930 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
931
932 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
933 show auto-load local-gdbinit
934 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
935
936 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
937 show auto-load libthread-db
938 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
939
940 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
941 show auto-load scripts-directory
942 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
943 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
944 of the directories listed by this option.
945 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
946
947 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
948 show auto-load safe-path
949 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
950 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
951
952 set debug auto-load on|off
953 show debug auto-load
954 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
955
956 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
957 show dprintf-style
958 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
959 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
960 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
961 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
962
963 set dprintf-function <expr>
964 show dprintf-function
965 set dprintf-channel <expr>
966 show dprintf-channel
967 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
968 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
969
970 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
971 show disconnected-dprintf
972 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
973 after GDB disconnects.
974
975 * New configure options
976
977 --with-auto-load-dir
978 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
979 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
980 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
981 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
982 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
983
984 --with-auto-load-safe-path
985 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
986 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
987
988 --without-auto-load-safe-path
989 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
990 security feature.
991
992 * New remote packets
993
994 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
995
996 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
997 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
998 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
999 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1000
1001 QProgramSignals:
1002
1003 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1004 program without GDB involvement.
1005
1006 * New command line options
1007
1008 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1009 before loading inferior.
1010 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1011 execute it before loading inferior.
1012
1013 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1014
1015 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1016 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1017 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1018 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1019 inferior changes.
1020
1021 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1022 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1023
1024 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1025 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1026 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1027 target hardware watchpoint.
1028
1029 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1030 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1031 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1032 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1033
1034 * Python scripting
1035
1036 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1037 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1038 existing one.
1039
1040 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1041 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1042 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1043 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1044 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1045 the stack trace.
1046
1047 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1048 Python API.
1049
1050 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1051 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1052 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1053 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1054 corresponding value.
1055
1056 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1057 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1058 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1059 on GDB start-up.
1060
1061 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1062 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1063 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1064 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1065
1066 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1067
1068 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1069 "gdb.breakpoints".
1070
1071 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1072 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1073 available in the CLI.
1074
1075 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1076 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1077 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1078 "some_type.items()".
1079
1080 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1081 new object file.
1082
1083 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1084 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1085 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1086 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1087 any anonymous fields.
1088
1089 * MI changes
1090
1091 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1092 "solib-event".
1093
1094 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1095 "=breakpoint-modified".
1096
1097 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1098
1099 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1100 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1101 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1102 lives.
1103
1104 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1105 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1106 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1107 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1108 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1109
1110 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1111 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1112
1113 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1114 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1115 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1116 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1117 use this option to specify where to find it.
1118
1119 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1120 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1121 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1122 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1123 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1124 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1125 section in the user manual for more details.
1126
1127 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1128 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1129 become available after that.
1130
1131 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1132
1133 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1134 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1135 gcc version 4.7.
1136
1137 * New commands
1138
1139 !SHELL COMMAND
1140 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1141 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1142
1143 * Changed commands
1144
1145 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1146 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1147 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1148
1149 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1150 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1151 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1152
1153 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1154 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1155 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1156 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1157 name starts with a hyphen.
1158
1159 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1160 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1161 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1162 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1163 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1164 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1165 number of bytes that will be collected.
1166
1167 tstart [NOTES]
1168 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1169 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1170 setting the variable trace-notes.
1171
1172 tstop [NOTES]
1173 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1174 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1175 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1176 trace-stop-notes.
1177
1178 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1179 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1180 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1181 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1182 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1183 is running.
1184
1185 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1186 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1187 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1188
1189 * New options
1190
1191 set debug dwarf2-read
1192 show debug dwarf2-read
1193 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1194 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1195
1196 set debug symtab-create
1197 show debug symtab-create
1198 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1199 creation. The default is off.
1200
1201 set extended-prompt
1202 show extended-prompt
1203 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1204 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1205 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1206 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1207 prompt is displayed.
1208
1209 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1210 show print entry-values
1211 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1212 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1213 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1214
1215 set debug entry-values
1216 show debug entry-values
1217 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1218 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1219
1220 set basenames-may-differ
1221 show basenames-may-differ
1222 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1223 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1224 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1225 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1226 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1227 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1228 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1229 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1230
1231 set trace-user
1232 show trace-user
1233 set trace-notes
1234 show trace-notes
1235 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1236 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1237 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1238 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1239
1240 set trace-stop-notes
1241 show trace-stop-notes
1242 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1243 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1244 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1245 started by someone else.
1246
1247 * New remote packets
1248
1249 QTEnable
1250
1251 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1252
1253 QTDisable
1254
1255 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1256
1257 QTNotes
1258
1259 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1260
1261 qTP
1262
1263 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1264
1265 qTMinFTPILen
1266
1267 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1268 be placed.
1269
1270 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1271 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1272
1273 * New targets
1274
1275 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1276
1277 * New Simulators
1278
1279 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1280
1281 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1282
1283 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1284
1285 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1286
1287 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1288 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1289 matches the given regular expression.
1290
1291 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1292
1293 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1294 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1295
1296 * New command line options
1297
1298 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1299 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1300
1301 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1302 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1303
1304 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1305 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1306 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1307
1308 * GDB now understands thread names.
1309
1310 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1311 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1312
1313 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1314 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1315
1316 * OpenCL C
1317 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1318 has been integrated into GDB.
1319
1320 * Python scripting
1321
1322 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1323 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1324 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1325
1326 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1327 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1328 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1329 and allows for more dynamic content.
1330
1331 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1332 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1333 have an is_valid method.
1334
1335 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1336 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1337 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1338
1339 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1340
1341 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1342 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1343 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1344 that function like so:
1345
1346 result = some_value (10,20)
1347
1348 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1349 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1350 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1351
1352 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1353 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1354 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1355 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1356 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1357
1358 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1359 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1360
1361 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1362
1363 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1364 selected thread.
1365
1366 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1367 holds the thread's name.
1368
1369 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1370 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1371 occurring in the process being debugged.
1372 The following events are currently supported:
1373 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1374 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1375 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1376
1377 * C++ Improvements:
1378
1379 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1380 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1381
1382 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1383
1384 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1385 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1386 was added to GCC 4.5.
1387
1388 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1389 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1390 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1391 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1392 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1393 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1394
1395 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1396 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1397 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1398 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1399 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1400
1401 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1402 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1403 execution to a label.
1404
1405 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1406 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1407 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1408 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1409
1410 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1411 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1412 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1413 of scope.
1414
1415 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1416
1417 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1418 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1419 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1420 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1421 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1422 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1423
1424 (gdb) info threads
1425 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1426
1427 While now you see this:
1428
1429 (gdb) info threads
1430 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1431
1432 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1433 dumps.
1434
1435 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1436 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1437 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1438 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1439
1440 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1441 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1442 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1443 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1444 section in the user manual for more details.
1445
1446 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1447
1448 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1449 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1450
1451 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1452
1453 * New native configurations
1454
1455 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1456
1457 * New targets:
1458
1459 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1460
1461 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1462 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1463 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1464 in the GDB user manual.
1465
1466 * Guile support was removed.
1467
1468 * New features in the GNU simulator
1469
1470 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1471
1472 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1473
1474 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1475
1476 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1477
1478 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1479 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1480 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1481 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1482 was always disabled for such configurations.
1483
1484 * C++ Improvements:
1485
1486 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1487
1488 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1489 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1490 For example:
1491 namespace A
1492 {
1493 class B { };
1494 void foo (B) { }
1495 }
1496 ...
1497 A::B b
1498 foo(b)
1499 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1500 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1501 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1502
1503 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1504
1505 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1506 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1507 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1508 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1509 entry.
1510 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1511 mentioned flavors of operators.
1512
1513 ** static const class members
1514
1515 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1516 class definition has been fixed.
1517
1518 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1519
1520 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1521 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1522 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1523 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1524 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1525 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1526
1527 * Static tracepoints
1528
1529 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1530 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1531 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1532 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1533 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1534 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1535 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1536 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1537 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1538 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1539 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1540 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1541 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1542 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1543 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1544 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1545 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1546 the "New remote packets" section below.
1547
1548 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1549
1550 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1551 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1552 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1553 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1554
1555 * Observer mode
1556
1557 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1558 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1559 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1560 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1561 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1562 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1563 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1564
1565 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1566 current thread.
1567
1568 * New remote packets
1569
1570 qGetTIBAddr
1571
1572 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1573
1574 qRelocInsn
1575
1576 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1577 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1578 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1579 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1580 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1581 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1582
1583 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1584
1585 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1586
1587 qTSTMat
1588
1589 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1590 program.
1591
1592 qXfer:statictrace:read
1593
1594 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1595 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1596 to gdb's qSupported query.
1597
1598 QAllow
1599
1600 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1601
1602 QTDPsrc
1603
1604 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1605 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1606
1607 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1608 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1609 a directory.
1610
1611 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1612
1613 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1614 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1615 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1616 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1617
1618 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1619 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1620 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1621 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1622 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1623 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1624 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1625
1626 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1627 for static tracepoints support.
1628
1629 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1630
1631 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1632 it understands register description.
1633
1634 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1635
1636 * X86 general purpose registers
1637
1638 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1639 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1640 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1641 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1642 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1643
1644 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1645 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1646 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1647 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1648 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1649 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1650
1651 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1652 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1653 in the specified file.
1654
1655 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1656 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1657 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1658 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1659 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1660 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1661 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1662 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1663 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1664 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1665
1666 * New commands
1667
1668 eval template, expressions...
1669 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1670 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1671
1672 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1673 show target-file-system-kind
1674 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1675 names.
1676
1677 save breakpoints <filename>
1678 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1679 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1680 definitions, use the `source' command.
1681
1682 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1683 is now deprecated.
1684
1685 info static-tracepoint-markers
1686 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1687
1688 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1689 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1690 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1691
1692 set observer on|off
1693 show observer
1694 Enable and disable observer mode.
1695
1696 set may-write-registers on|off
1697 set may-write-memory on|off
1698 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1699 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1700 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1701 set may-interrupt on|off
1702 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1703 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1704 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1705 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1706 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1707 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1708 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1709
1710 set record memory-query on|off
1711 show record memory-query
1712 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1713 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1714
1715 * Changed commands
1716
1717 disassemble
1718 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1719
1720 * Python scripting
1721
1722 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1723 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1724 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1725 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1726 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1727
1728 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1729 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1730 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1731 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1732
1733 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1734 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1735
1736 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1737
1738 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1739
1740 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1741
1742 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1743 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1744 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1745
1746 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1747 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1748 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1749 regular breakpoints.
1750
1751 * New targets
1752
1753 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1754
1755 * D language support.
1756 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1757 language.
1758
1759 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1760 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1761 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1762 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1763 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1764
1765 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1766 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1767 conditions of the form:
1768
1769 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1770
1771 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1772 interface mentioned above.
1773
1774 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1775
1776 * C++ Improvements
1777
1778 ** Namespace Support
1779
1780 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1781 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1782 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1783 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1784 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1785
1786 ** Bug Fixes
1787
1788 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1789 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1790 qualified name.
1791
1792 ** Cast Operators
1793
1794 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1795 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1796
1797 * New targets
1798
1799 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1800 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
1801
1802 * New Simulators
1803
1804 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1805 Renesas RX rx
1806
1807 * Multi-program debugging.
1808
1809 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1810 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1811 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1812 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1813 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1814 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1815 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1816 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1817
1818 * New tracing features
1819
1820 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1821
1822 ** Trace state variables
1823
1824 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1825 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1826 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1827 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1828 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1829 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1830 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1831 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1832 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1833 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1834
1835 ** Fast tracepoints
1836
1837 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1838 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1839 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1840 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1841 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1842 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1843 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1844 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1845 the regular trace command.
1846
1847 ** Disconnected tracing
1848
1849 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1850 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1851 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1852 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1853 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1854
1855 ** Trace files
1856
1857 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1858 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1859 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1860 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1861 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1862 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1863 <name>".
1864
1865 ** Circular trace buffer
1866
1867 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1868 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1869 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1870 not be available for all target agents.
1871
1872 * Changed commands
1873
1874 disassemble
1875 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1876 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1877
1878 info variables
1879 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1880 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1881
1882 source
1883 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1884 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1885 support.
1886
1887 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1888 "set script-extension" (see below).
1889
1890 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1891
1892 record save [<FILENAME>]
1893 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1894 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1895
1896 record restore <FILENAME>
1897 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1898 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1899
1900 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1901 Add a new inferior.
1902
1903 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1904 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1905 inferior has loaded.
1906
1907 remove-inferior ID
1908 Remove an inferior.
1909
1910 maint info program-spaces
1911 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1912
1913 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1914 show remote interrupt-sequence
1915 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1916 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1917 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1918 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1919 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1920
1921 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1922 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1923 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1924 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1925 Linux kernel.
1926
1927 set remotebreak [on | off]
1928 show remotebreak
1929 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1930
1931 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1932 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1933
1934 info tvariables
1935 List trace state variables and their values.
1936
1937 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1938 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1939
1940 teval EXPR, ...
1941 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1942 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1943
1944 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1945 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1946
1947 * New expression syntax
1948
1949 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1950 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1951
1952 * New options
1953
1954 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1955 show follow-exec-mode
1956 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1957 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1958 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1959
1960 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1961 show default-collect
1962 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1963 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1964 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1965
1966 set disconnected-tracing
1967 show disconnected-tracing
1968 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1969 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1970 upon disconnection.
1971
1972 set circular-trace-buffer
1973 show circular-trace-buffer
1974 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1975 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1976 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1977 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1978
1979 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1980 show script-extension
1981 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1982 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1983 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1984 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1985 evaluation failed.
1986 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1987
1988 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1989 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1990 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1991 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1992 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1993 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1994 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1995 is on.
1996
1997 * Python API Improvements
1998
1999 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2000 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2001 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2002
2003 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2004 `is_base_class' attribute.
2005
2006 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2007
2008 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2009 evaluate an expression.
2010
2011 * New remote packets
2012
2013 QTDV
2014 Define a trace state variable.
2015
2016 qTV
2017 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2018
2019 QTDisconnected
2020 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2021
2022 QTBuffer:circular
2023 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2024
2025 qTfP, qTsP
2026 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2027
2028 * Bug fixes
2029
2030 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2031
2032 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2033 much more reliable. In particular:
2034 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2035 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2036 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2037 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2038 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2039 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2040 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2041 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2042 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2043 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2044 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2045 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2046 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2047 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2048 non-threaded programs.
2049
2050 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2051 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2052 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2053 executable program.
2054
2055 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2056
2057 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2058 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2059 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2060 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2061 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2062
2063 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2064 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2065 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2066 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2067 for tracepoint actions.
2068
2069 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2070 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2071 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2072
2073 * Process record and replay
2074
2075 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2076 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2077 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2078 execute commands.
2079
2080 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2081 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2082 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2083 reverse execution.
2084
2085 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2086 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2087 2.6.28 or later.
2088
2089 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2090 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2091 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2092 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2093 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2094 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2095 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2096 the installation instructions for more information.
2097
2098 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2099 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2100 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2101 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2102
2103 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2104 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2105
2106 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2107 now complete on file names.
2108
2109 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2110 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2111 For instance, consider:
2112
2113 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2114 # struct example variable;
2115 (gdb) p variable.
2116
2117 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2118 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2119
2120 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2121 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2122
2123 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2124 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2125 macros.
2126
2127 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2128 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2129 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2130
2131 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2132 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2133 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2134 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2135
2136 * New remote packets
2137
2138 qSearch:memory:
2139 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2140
2141 QStartNoAckMode
2142 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2143 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2144 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2145
2146 vKill
2147 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2148 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2149
2150 qXfer:osdata:read
2151 Obtains additional operating system information
2152
2153 qXfer:siginfo:read
2154 qXfer:siginfo:write
2155 Read or write additional signal information.
2156
2157 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2158
2159 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2160 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2161 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2162
2163 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2164 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2165
2166 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2167 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2168 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2169
2170 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2171 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2172
2173 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2174
2175 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2176
2177 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2178 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2179
2180 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2181 list of section offsets.
2182
2183 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2184 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2185 have also been fixed.
2186
2187 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2188 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2189 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2190
2191 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2192 example, given:
2193
2194 template<typename T> class C { };
2195 C<char const *> c;
2196
2197 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2198
2199 ptype C<char const *>
2200 ptype C<char const*>
2201 ptype C<const char *>
2202 ptype C<const char*>
2203
2204 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2205
2206 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2207 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2208
2209 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2210 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2211 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2212
2213 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2214 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2215
2216 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2217 gdbserver.
2218
2219 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2220 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2221
2222 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2223 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2224 as appropriate.
2225
2226 * Python scripting
2227
2228 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2229 available is determined at configure time.
2230
2231 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2232
2233 * Ada tasking support
2234
2235 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2236 been introduced:
2237
2238 info tasks
2239 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2240 info task N
2241 Print detailed information about task number N.
2242 task
2243 Print the task number of the current task.
2244 task N
2245 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2246
2247 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2248 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2249
2250 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2251
2252 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2253 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2254 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2255 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2256 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2257 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2258 below.
2259
2260 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2261 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2262 information.
2263
2264 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2265 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2266 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2267 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2268 more information.
2269
2270 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2271
2272 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2273 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2274 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2275 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2276 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2277
2278 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2279 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2280 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2281 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2282 --enable-targets configure option.
2283
2284 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2285
2286 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2287 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2288 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2289 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2290 section in the user manual for more information.
2291
2292 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2293 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2294 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2295 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2296 extensions on linux targets.
2297
2298 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2299
2300 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2301 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2302 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2303 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2304 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2305 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2306 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2307 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2308 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2309
2310 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2311 val1 [, val2, ...]
2312 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2313
2314 maint set python print-stack
2315 maint show python print-stack
2316 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2317
2318 python [CODE]
2319 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2320
2321 macro define
2322 macro list
2323 macro undef
2324 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2325 interactively.
2326
2327 info os processes
2328 Show operating system information about processes.
2329
2330 info inferiors
2331 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2332
2333 inferior NUM
2334 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2335
2336 detach inferior NUM
2337 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2338
2339 kill inferior NUM
2340 Kill inferior number NUM.
2341
2342 * New options
2343
2344 set spu stop-on-load
2345 show spu stop-on-load
2346 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2347
2348 set spu auto-flush-cache
2349 show spu auto-flush-cache
2350 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2351 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2352
2353 set sh calling-convention
2354 show sh calling-convention
2355 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2356
2357 set debug timestamp
2358 show debug timestamp
2359 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2360
2361 set disassemble-next-line
2362 show disassemble-next-line
2363 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2364 the debuggee stops.
2365
2366 set remote noack-packet
2367 show remote noack-packet
2368 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2369 under "New remote packets."
2370
2371 set remote query-attached-packet
2372 show remote query-attached-packet
2373 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2374
2375 set remote read-siginfo-object
2376 show remote read-siginfo-object
2377 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2378 packet.
2379
2380 set remote write-siginfo-object
2381 show remote write-siginfo-object
2382 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2383 packet.
2384
2385 set remote reverse-continue
2386 show remote reverse-continue
2387 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2388
2389 set remote reverse-step
2390 show remote reverse-step
2391 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2392
2393 set displaced-stepping
2394 show displaced-stepping
2395 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2396 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2397 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2398
2399 set debug displaced
2400 show debug displaced
2401 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2402
2403 maint set internal-error
2404 maint show internal-error
2405 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2406
2407 maint set internal-warning
2408 maint show internal-warning
2409 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2410
2411 set exec-wrapper
2412 show exec-wrapper
2413 unset exec-wrapper
2414 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2415
2416 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2417 show multiple-symbols
2418 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2419 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2420 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2421
2422 set breakpoint always-inserted
2423 show breakpoint always-inserted
2424 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2425 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2426 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2427
2428 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2429 show arm fallback-mode
2430 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2431 show arm force-mode
2432 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2433 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2434 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2435 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2436
2437 set disable-randomization
2438 show disable-randomization
2439 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2440 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2441 multiple debugging sessions.
2442
2443 set non-stop
2444 show non-stop
2445 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2446 a breakpoint.
2447
2448 set target-async
2449 show target-async
2450 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2451 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2452 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2453 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2454
2455 set target-wide-charset
2456 show target-wide-charset
2457 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2458 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2459
2460 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2461 show tcp auto-retry
2462 set tcp connect-timeout
2463 show tcp connect-timeout
2464 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2465 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2466 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2467
2468 set libthread-db-search-path
2469 show libthread-db-search-path
2470 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2471 libthread_db.
2472
2473 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2474 show schedule-multiple
2475 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2476 the current process.
2477
2478 set stack-cache
2479 show stack-cache
2480 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2481 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2482 affecting correctness.
2483
2484 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2485 show interactive-mode
2486 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2487 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2488 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2489 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2490 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2491
2492 * Removed commands
2493
2494 info forks
2495 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2496 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2497 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2498 command.
2499
2500 fork NUM
2501 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2502 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2503 alias for the `fork' command.
2504
2505 process PID
2506 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2507 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2508 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2509
2510 delete fork NUM
2511 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2512 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2513 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2514 fork' command.
2515
2516 detach fork NUM
2517 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2518 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2519 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2520 fork' command.
2521
2522 * New native configurations
2523
2524 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2525
2526 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2527
2528 * New targets
2529
2530 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2531 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2532 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2533 S+core 3 score-*-*
2534
2535 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2536 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2537
2538 * Removed commands
2539
2540 catch load
2541 catch unload
2542 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2543
2544 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2545
2546 * New native configurations
2547
2548 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2549 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2550
2551 * New targets
2552
2553 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2554 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2555
2556 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2557
2558 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2559 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2560 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2561 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2562
2563 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2564 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2565
2566 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2567 is resolved.
2568
2569 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2570 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2571 and in inlined functions.
2572
2573 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2574 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2575 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2576
2577 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2578
2579 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2580 registers on PowerPC targets.
2581
2582 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2583 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2584
2585 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2586 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2587
2588 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2589 extended-remote mode.
2590
2591 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2592 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2593 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2594 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2595
2596 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2597 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2598 target architectures.
2599
2600 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2601 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2602 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2603 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2604
2605 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2606 breakpoints now.
2607
2608 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2609 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2610 include:
2611 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2612 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2613 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2614 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2615 of an assignment
2616 - Improved command completion in Ada
2617 - Several bug fixes
2618
2619 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2620 process.
2621
2622 * New commands
2623
2624 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2625 show print frame-arguments
2626 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2627 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2628
2629 remote put
2630 remote get
2631 remote delete
2632 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2633
2634 * New MI commands
2635
2636 -target-file-put
2637 -target-file-get
2638 -target-file-delete
2639 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2640
2641 * New remote packets
2642
2643 vFile:open:
2644 vFile:close:
2645 vFile:pread:
2646 vFile:pwrite:
2647 vFile:unlink:
2648 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2649
2650 vAttach
2651 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2652 mode.
2653
2654 vRun
2655 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2656
2657 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2658
2659 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2660 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2661 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2662
2663 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2664 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2665 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2666
2667 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2668 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2669 is not supported.
2670
2671 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2672 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2673
2674 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2675 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2676
2677 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2678
2679 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2680 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2681 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2682
2683 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2684 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2685
2686 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2687 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2688 as strings.
2689
2690 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2691 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2692 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2693
2694 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2695 iWMMXt coprocessor.
2696
2697 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2698 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2699 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2700
2701 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2702
2703 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2704
2705 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2706 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2707 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2708
2709 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2710 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2711
2712 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2713 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2714 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2715 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2716 Windows and SymbianOS).
2717
2718 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2719 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2720
2721 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2722 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2723
2724 * New commands
2725
2726 set remoteflow
2727 show remoteflow
2728 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2729 when debugging using remote targets.
2730
2731 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2732 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2733 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2734 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2735 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2736 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2737 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2738
2739 set breakpoint auto-hw
2740 show breakpoint auto-hw
2741 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2742 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2743 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2744 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2745 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2746 including "next" and "finish".
2747
2748 catch exception
2749 catch exception unhandled
2750 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2751
2752 catch assert
2753 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2754
2755 set sysroot
2756 show sysroot
2757 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2758 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2759 an alias to "set sysroot".
2760
2761 info spu
2762 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2763 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2764 architecture.
2765
2766 * New native configurations
2767
2768 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2769
2770 set tdesc filename
2771 unset tdesc filename
2772 show tdesc filename
2773 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2774 not query the target for its built-in description.
2775
2776 * New targets
2777
2778 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2779 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2780 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2781
2782 * New remote packets
2783
2784 QPassSignals:
2785 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2786 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2787
2788 qXfer:features:read:
2789 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2790 features.
2791
2792 qXfer:spu:read:
2793 qXfer:spu:write:
2794 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2795 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2796
2797 qXfer:libraries:read:
2798 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2799 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2800 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2801 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2802
2803 * Removed targets
2804
2805 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2806
2807 alpha*-*-osf1*
2808 alpha*-*-osf2*
2809 d10v-*-*
2810 hppa*-*-hiux*
2811 i[34567]86-ncr-*
2812 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2813 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2814 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2815 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2816 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2817 i[34567]86-*-sco*
2818 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2819 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2820 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2821 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2822 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2823 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2824 i[34567]86-*-isc*
2825 m68*-cisco*-*
2826 m68*-tandem-*
2827 mips*-*-pe
2828 rs6000-*-lynxos*
2829 sh*-*-pe
2830
2831 * Other removed features
2832
2833 target abug
2834 target cpu32bug
2835 target est
2836 target rom68k
2837
2838 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2839
2840 target hms
2841 target e7000
2842 target sh3
2843 target sh3e
2844
2845 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2846 H8/300.
2847
2848 target ocd
2849
2850 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2851 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2852 interfaces.
2853
2854 DWARF 1 support
2855
2856 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2857 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2858
2859 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2860
2861 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2862 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2863 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2864 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2865
2866 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2867
2868 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2869 in debugging information.
2870
2871 Scheme support
2872
2873 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2874 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2875
2876 set mips stack-arg-size
2877 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2878
2879 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2880
2881 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2882
2883 * New targets
2884
2885 Xtensa xtensa-elf
2886 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2887
2888 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2889 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2890 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2891
2892 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2893 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2894 supported.
2895
2896 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2897 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2898
2899 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2900 stub provides the required support.
2901
2902 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2903 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2904
2905 * New commands
2906
2907 set substitute-path
2908 unset substitute-path
2909 show substitute-path
2910 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2911 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2912 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2913 between compilation and debugging.
2914
2915 set trace-commands
2916 show trace-commands
2917 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2918 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2919 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2920
2921 * REMOVED features
2922
2923 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2924
2925 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2926 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2927
2928 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2929
2930 * New remote packets
2931
2932 qSupported:
2933 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2934 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2935 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2936 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2937 target.
2938
2939 qXfer:auxv:read:
2940 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2941 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2942
2943 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2944 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2945 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2946
2947 vFlashErase:
2948 vFlashWrite:
2949 vFlashDone:
2950 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2951
2952 * Removed remote packets
2953
2954 qPart:auxv:read:
2955 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2956 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2957
2958 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2959
2960 * New targets
2961
2962 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2963
2964 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2965
2966 * New commands
2967
2968 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2969 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2970
2971 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2972
2973 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2974
2975 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2976 previously saved state.
2977
2978 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2979
2980 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2981
2982 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2983 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2984
2985 info forks List forks of the user program that
2986 are available to be debugged.
2987
2988 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2989 forks of the user program that are
2990 available to be debugged.
2991
2992 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2993 that are available to be debugged (and
2994 kill the forked process).
2995
2996 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2997 that are available to be debugged (and
2998 allow the process to continue).
2999
3000 * New architecture
3001
3002 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3003
3004 * Improved Windows host support
3005
3006 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3007 native console support, and remote communications using either
3008 network sockets or serial ports.
3009
3010 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3011
3012 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3013 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3014 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3015 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3016 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3017 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3018
3019 * REMOVED features
3020
3021 The ARM rdi-share module.
3022
3023 The Netware NLM debug server.
3024
3025 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3026
3027 * New native configurations
3028
3029 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3030 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3031
3032 * New targets
3033
3034 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3035
3036 * New command line options
3037
3038 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3039 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3040 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3041 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3042 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3043 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3044 with the --command (-x) option.
3045
3046 * Deprecated commands removed
3047
3048 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3049 removed:
3050
3051 Command Replacement
3052 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3053 othernames set arm disassembler
3054 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3055 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3056 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3057 regs info registers
3058
3059 * New BSD user-level threads support
3060
3061 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3062 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3063 configurations are:
3064
3065 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3066 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3067 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3068
3069 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3070 are not yet supported.
3071
3072 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3073 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3074
3075 * REMOVED configurations and files
3076
3077 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3078 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3079 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3080
3081 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3082
3083 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3084 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3085 behavior.
3086
3087 * VAX floating point support
3088
3089 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3090
3091 * User-defined command support
3092
3093 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3094 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3095 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3096
3097 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3098
3099 * New command line option
3100
3101 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3102 debugging.
3103
3104 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3105
3106 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3107 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3108 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3109 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3110 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3111
3112 * Internationalization
3113
3114 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3115 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3116 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3117
3118 * Ada
3119
3120 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3121 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3122 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3123
3124 * New native configurations
3125
3126 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3127
3128 * Remote 'p' packet
3129
3130 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3131 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3132
3133 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3134
3135 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3136 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3137 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3138 i386 application).
3139
3140 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3141 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3142 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3143 configurations:
3144
3145 hppa-*-hpux
3146 ia64-*-aix
3147 mips-*-irix*
3148 *-*-lynx
3149 mips-*-linux-gnu
3150 sds protocol
3151 xdr protocol
3152 powerpc bdm protocol
3153
3154 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3155 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3156
3157 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3158
3159 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3160 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3161 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3162 permanently REMOVED.
3163
3164 h8300-*-*
3165 mcore-*-*
3166 mn10300-*-*
3167 ns32k-*-*
3168 sh64-*-*
3169 v850-*-*
3170
3171 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3172
3173 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3174
3175 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3176 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3177 been fixed.
3178
3179 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3180
3181 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3182 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3183 IRIX long double values).
3184
3185 * VAX and "next"
3186
3187 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3188 command. This problem has been fixed.
3189
3190 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3191
3192 * Fix for ``many threads''
3193
3194 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3195 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3196 error message:
3197
3198 ptrace: No such process.
3199 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3200
3201 This problem has been fixed.
3202
3203 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3204
3205 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3206 GDB to dump core).
3207
3208 * New ``start'' command.
3209
3210 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3211
3212 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3213
3214 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3215 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3216 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3217
3218 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3219 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3220 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3221 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3222 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3223 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3224 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3225 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3226 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3227
3228 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3229
3230 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3231 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3232 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3233 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3234 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3235
3236 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3237 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3238 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3239
3240 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3241
3242 * New native configurations
3243
3244 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3245 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3246 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3247 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3248 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3249 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3250 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3251
3252 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3253
3254 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3255 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3256 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3257 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3258 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3259 work, was also included.
3260
3261 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3262 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3263
3264 h8300-*-*
3265 mcore-*-*
3266 mn10300-*-*
3267 ns32k-*-*
3268 sh64-*-*
3269 v850-*-*
3270 xstormy16-*-*
3271
3272 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3273 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3274
3275 * REMOVED configurations and files
3276
3277 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3278 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3279 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3280 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3281 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3282 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3283 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3284 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3285 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3286 sonymips mips-sony-*
3287 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3288
3289 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3290
3291 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3292
3293 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3294 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3295 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3296 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3297 with GDB".
3298
3299 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3300
3301 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3302 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3303 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3304 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3305 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3306 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3307 are created.
3308
3309 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3310
3311 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3312
3313 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3314 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3315 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3316
3317 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3318
3319 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3320 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3321
3322 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3323
3324 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3325 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3326 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3327
3328 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3329
3330 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3331 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3332
3333 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3334
3335 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3336 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3337 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3338
3339 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3340
3341 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3342 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3343 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3344
3345 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3346
3347 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3348
3349 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3350 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3351
3352 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3353
3354 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3355 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3356 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3357 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3358
3359 * Revised SPARC target
3360
3361 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3362 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3363 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3364 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3365 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3366
3367 * New C++ demangler
3368
3369 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3370 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3371 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3372 programs.
3373
3374 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3375
3376 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3377 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3378 encountered these.
3379
3380 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3381
3382 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3383 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3384 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3385 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3386 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3387 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3388 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3389 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3390 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3391
3392 * New native configurations
3393
3394 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3395 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3396 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3397 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3398 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3399
3400 * New debugging protocols
3401
3402 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3403
3404 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3405
3406 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3407 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3408 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3409
3410 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3411
3412 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3413 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3414 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3415 permanently REMOVED.
3416
3417 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3418 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3419 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3420 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3421 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3422 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3423 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3424 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3425 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3426 sonymips mips-sony-*
3427 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3428
3429 * REMOVED configurations and files
3430
3431 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3432 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3433 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3434 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3435 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3436 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3437 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3438 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3439 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3440 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3441 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3442 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3443 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3444 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3445 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3446 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3447 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3448
3449 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3450
3451 * Objective-C
3452
3453 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3454 integrated into GDB.
3455
3456 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3457
3458 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3459 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3460 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3461 backtraces.
3462
3463 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3464 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3465 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3466
3467 * Hosted file I/O.
3468
3469 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3470 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3471 remote protocol documentation for details.
3472
3473 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3474
3475 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3476 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3477 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3478 ppc32 on ppc64).
3479
3480 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3481
3482 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3483 per-thread variables.
3484
3485 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3486
3487 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3488 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3489
3490 * Separate debug info.
3491
3492 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3493 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3494 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3495 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3496 and optional debug files.
3497
3498 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3499
3500 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3501 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3502 debugger.
3503
3504 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3505 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3506
3507 * Java
3508
3509 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3510 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3511 considered "useable".
3512
3513 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3514
3515 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3516 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3517 kernel.
3518
3519 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3520
3521 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3522 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3523
3524 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3525
3526 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3527 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3528 command.
3529
3530 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3531
3532 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3533 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3534
3535 * Profiling support
3536
3537 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3538 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3539 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3540 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3541 data, for more informative profiling results.
3542
3543 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3544
3545 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3546 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3547 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3548
3549 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3550 removed.
3551
3552 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3553 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3554 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3555 in a subsequent -var-update.
3556
3557 * New native configurations.
3558
3559 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3560
3561 * Multi-arched targets.
3562
3563 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3564 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3565
3566 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3567
3568 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3569 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3570 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3571 permanently REMOVED.
3572
3573 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3574 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3575 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3576 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3577 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3578 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3579 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3580 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3581 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3582 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3583 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3584 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3585
3586 * REMOVED configurations and files
3587
3588 V850EA ISA
3589 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3590 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3591 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3592 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3593 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3594 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3595 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3596 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3597 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3598 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3599 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3600 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3601 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3602
3603 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3604
3605 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3606 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3607 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3608 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3609 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3610
3611 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3612
3613 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3614
3615 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3616 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3617 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3618 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3619 shared libs like mad''.
3620
3621 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3622
3623 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3624 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3625 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3626 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3627
3628 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3629
3630 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3631 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3632 they expand.
3633
3634 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3635 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3636
3637 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3638 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3639
3640 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3641 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3642 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3643 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3644
3645 * Multi-arched targets.
3646
3647 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3648 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3649 NEC V850 v850-*-*
3650 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3651 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3652 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3653
3654 * New targets.
3655
3656 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3657
3658
3659 * New native configurations
3660
3661 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3662 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3663 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3664 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3665
3666 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3667
3668 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3669 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3670 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3671 permanently REMOVED.
3672
3673 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3674 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3675 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3676 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3677 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3678 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3679 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3680 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3681 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3682 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3683 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3684 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3685 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3686
3687 * OBSOLETE languages
3688
3689 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3690
3691 * REMOVED configurations and files
3692
3693 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3694 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3695 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3696 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3697 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3698
3699 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3700
3701 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3702
3703 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3704 commands. The default is 1024.
3705
3706 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3707
3708 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3709
3710 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3711
3712 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3713 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3714 from a file into memory (restore).
3715
3716 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3717
3718 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3719 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3720 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3721
3722 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3723
3724 * New targets.
3725
3726 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3727
3728 * Bug fixes
3729
3730 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3731 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3732 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3733
3734 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3735 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3736 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3737
3738 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3739 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3740 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3741
3742 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3743 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3744 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3745
3746 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3747
3748 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3749
3750 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3751 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3752 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3753 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3754 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3755 (notably embedded) targets.
3756
3757 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3758
3759 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3760 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3761 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3762 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3763
3764 * New command line option
3765
3766 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3767
3768 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3769
3770 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3771 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3772 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3773 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3774 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3775 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3776 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3777 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3778 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3779 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3780
3781 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3782
3783 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3784 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3785
3786 * New native configurations
3787
3788 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3789 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3790 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3791 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3792
3793 * New targets
3794
3795 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3796
3797 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3798
3799 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3800 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3801 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3802 permanently REMOVED.
3803
3804 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3805 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3806 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3807 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3808 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3809
3810 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3811
3812 * REMOVED configurations and files
3813
3814 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3815 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3816 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3817 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3818 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3819 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3820 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3821 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3822 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3823 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3824 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3825 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3826 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3827
3828 * Changes to command line processing
3829
3830 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3831 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3832
3833 * Changes to key bindings
3834
3835 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3836
3837 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3838
3839 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3840
3841 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3842 corrupted.
3843
3844 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3845
3846 Numerous documentation fixes.
3847
3848 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3849
3850 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3851
3852 * New native configurations
3853
3854 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3855 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3856 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3857 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3858 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3859 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3860
3861 * New targets
3862
3863 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3864 CRIS cris-axis
3865 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3866
3867 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3868
3869 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3870 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3871 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3872 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3873 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3874 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3875 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3876 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3877 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3878 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3879 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3880 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3881 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3882 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3883
3884 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3885 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3886
3887 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3888 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3889 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3890 permanently REMOVED.
3891
3892 * REMOVED configurations and files
3893
3894 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3895 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3896 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3897 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3898 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3899 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
3900
3901 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3902
3903 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3904 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3905 present.
3906
3907 * Other news:
3908
3909 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3910
3911 * The MI enabled by default.
3912
3913 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3914 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3915 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3916 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3917 which is now deprecated.
3918
3919 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3920
3921 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3922 main features are supported:
3923
3924 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3925
3926 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3927 extension;
3928
3929 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3930
3931 - a Pascal expression parser.
3932
3933 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3934
3935 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3936
3937 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3938
3939 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3940 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3941
3942 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3943
3944 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3945
3946 * Changes in completion.
3947
3948 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3949 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3950 users expect at the shell prompt.
3951
3952 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3953 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3954 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3955 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3956 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3957 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3958 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3959
3960 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3961
3962 * New platform-independent commands:
3963
3964 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3965 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3966 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3967
3968 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3969
3970 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3971 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3972 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3973
3974 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3975
3976 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3977 multi-threaded programs though.
3978
3979 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3980
3981 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3982
3983 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3984 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3985 supported.)
3986
3987 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3988
3989 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3990 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3991 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3992 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3993 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3994 registers.
3995
3996 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3997 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3998 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3999
4000 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4001
4002 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4003 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4004
4005 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4006 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4007 IDT.
4008
4009 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4010 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4011 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4012 a given linear address.
4013
4014 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4015 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4016 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4017
4018 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4019
4020 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4021
4022 * Changes in documentation.
4023
4024 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4025 Documentation License.
4026
4027 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4028 manual.
4029
4030 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4031
4032 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4033 manual.
4034
4035 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4036 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4037 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4038
4039 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4040
4041 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4042 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4043 contents of this file.
4044
4045 * gdba.el deleted
4046
4047 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4048
4049 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4050
4051 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4052
4053 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4054 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4055 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4056 greater level of detail.
4057
4058 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4059
4060 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4061 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4062 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4063 written.
4064
4065 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4066
4067 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4068 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4069 machines ``out of the box''.
4070
4071 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4072 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4073 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4074 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4075 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4076
4077 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4078 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4079 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4080 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4081 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4082
4083 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4084 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4085 also works.
4086
4087 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4088 GDB.
4089
4090 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4091 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4092 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4093 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4094
4095 * New native configurations
4096
4097 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4098 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4099
4100 * New targets
4101
4102 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4103 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4104 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4105 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4106
4107 * OBSOLETE configurations
4108
4109 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4110 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4111 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4112 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4113 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
4114
4115 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4116 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4117 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4118 be permanently REMOVED.
4119
4120 * Gould support removed
4121
4122 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4123
4124 * New features for SVR4
4125
4126 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4127 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4128 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4129
4130 * Many C++ enhancements
4131
4132 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4133 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4134
4135 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4136
4137 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4138 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4139 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4140 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4141
4142 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4143 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4144
4145 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4146
4147 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4148 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4149 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4150
4151 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4152 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4153
4154 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4155
4156 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4157 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4158 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4159
4160 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4161
4162 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4163 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4164 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4165
4166 * ``apropos'' command added.
4167
4168 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4169 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4170 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4171
4172 * New MI interface
4173
4174 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4175 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4176 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4177 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4178 enabled by configuring with:
4179
4180 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4181
4182 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4183
4184 * New native configurations
4185
4186 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4187 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4188 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4189
4190 * New targets
4191
4192 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4193 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4194 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4195
4196 * OBSOLETE configurations
4197
4198 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4199
4200 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4201 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4202 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4203 be permanently REMOVED.
4204
4205 * ANSI/ISO C
4206
4207 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4208 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4209 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4210 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4211 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4212 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4213 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4214 already.
4215
4216 * Readline 2.2
4217
4218 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4219
4220 * set extension-language
4221
4222 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4223 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4224 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4225 set extension-language .c c++
4226 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4227 and their associated languages.
4228
4229 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4230
4231 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4232 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4233 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4234
4235 set processor NAME
4236
4237 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4238 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4239
4240 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4241 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4242 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4243 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4244 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4245 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4246 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4247 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4248 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4249 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4250 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4251
4252 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4253 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4254 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4255 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4256
4257 * HP-UX support
4258
4259 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4260 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4261 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4262 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4263 for xdb and dbx commands.
4264
4265 * Catchpoints
4266
4267 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4268 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4269 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4270
4271 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4272 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4273 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4274
4275 * Debugging across forks
4276
4277 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4278 in the inferior.
4279
4280 * TUI
4281
4282 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4283 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4284 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4285
4286 * GDB remote protocol additions
4287
4288 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4289 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4290 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4291 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4292
4293 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4294 full 64-bit address. The command
4295
4296 set remoteaddresssize 32
4297
4298 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4299 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4300 will be discarded.
4301
4302 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4303 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4304
4305 maint packet heythere
4306
4307 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4308 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4309 time.
4310
4311 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4312 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4313 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4314
4315 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4316
4317 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4318 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4319 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4320
4321 * mask-address variable for Mips
4322
4323 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4324 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4325 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4326
4327 * Higher serial baud rates
4328
4329 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4330 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4331 to achieve all of these rates.)
4332
4333 * i960 simulator
4334
4335 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4336 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4337
4338
4339 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4340
4341 * New native configurations
4342
4343 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4344 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4345 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4346 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4347 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4348 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4349 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4350
4351 * New targets
4352
4353 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4354 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4355 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4356 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4357 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4358 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4359 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4360 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4361 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4362 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4363 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4364
4365 * New debugging protocols
4366
4367 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4368 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4369 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4370 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4371 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4372 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4373
4374 * DWARF 2
4375
4376 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4377 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4378 information.
4379
4380 * Java frontend
4381
4382 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4383 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4384
4385 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4386
4387 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4388 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4389 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4390
4391 * Live range splitting
4392
4393 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4394 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4395 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4396
4397 * Hurd support
4398
4399 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4400 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4401
4402 * ARM Thumb support
4403
4404 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4405 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4406 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4407 accordingly.
4408
4409 * MIPS16 support
4410
4411 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4412 instruction set.
4413
4414 * Overlay support
4415
4416 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4417 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4418 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4419 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4420 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4421 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4422
4423 * info symbol
4424
4425 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4426 the symbol at the specified address.
4427
4428 * Trace support
4429
4430 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4431 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4432 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4433 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4434 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4435
4436 * MIPS simulator
4437
4438 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4439 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4440 of most MIPS variants.
4441
4442 * Sparc simulator
4443
4444 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4445 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4446 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4447
4448 * set architecture
4449
4450 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4451 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4452 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4453 the possible architectures.
4454
4455 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4456
4457 * New native configurations
4458
4459 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4460 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4461 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4462 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4463 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4464 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4465
4466 * New targets
4467
4468 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4469 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4470 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4471 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4472 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4473 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4474 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4475
4476 * PowerPC simulator
4477
4478 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4479 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4480 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4481 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4482 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4483
4484 * Solaris 2.5
4485
4486 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4487
4488 * Windows 95/NT native
4489
4490 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4491 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4492 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4493 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4494 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4495
4496 * dont-repeat command
4497
4498 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4499 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4500 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4501 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4502
4503 * Send break instead of ^C
4504
4505 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4506 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4507 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4508
4509 * Remote protocol timeout
4510
4511 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4512 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4513 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4514
4515 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4516
4517 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4518 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4519 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4520 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4521 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4522
4523 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4524 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4525 automatically on hpux10.
4526
4527 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4528
4529 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4530
4531 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4532
4533 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4534 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4535 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4536 every character. The default value is 1050.
4537
4538 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4539
4540 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4541 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4542 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4543 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4544 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4545 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4546
4547 * Speedups for remote debugging
4548
4549 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4550 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4551 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4552
4553 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4554
4555 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4556 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4557
4558 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4559
4560 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4561
4562 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4563 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4564
4565 * Remote targets use caching
4566
4567 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4568 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4569 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4570 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4571 off' turns the the data cache off.
4572
4573 * Remote targets may have threads
4574
4575 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4576 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4577 gdb/remote.c for details.
4578
4579 * NetROM support
4580
4581 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4582 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4583 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4584 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4585 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4586 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4587 sequence is something like
4588
4589 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4590 load <prog>
4591 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4592
4593 * Macintosh host
4594
4595 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4596 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4597 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4598 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4599 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4600 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4601 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4602 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4603
4604 * Autoconf
4605
4606 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4607 but does simplify configuration and building.
4608
4609 * hpux10
4610
4611 GDB now supports hpux10.
4612
4613 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4614
4615 * New native configurations
4616
4617 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4618 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4619 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4620 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4621
4622 * New targets
4623
4624 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4625 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4626 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4627 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4628 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4629
4630 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4631
4632 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4633 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4634 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4635 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4636 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4637
4638 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4639
4640 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4641 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4642 trivial example:
4643 define adder
4644 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4645
4646 To execute the command use:
4647 adder 1 2 3
4648
4649 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4650 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4651 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4652
4653 * New `if' and `while' commands
4654
4655 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4656 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4657 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4658 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4659 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4660 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4661 if the expression is zero.
4662
4663 * Fortran source language mode
4664
4665 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4666 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4667 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4668 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4669 Fortran compilers.
4670
4671 * Better HPUX support
4672
4673 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4674 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4675 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4676 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4677 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4678
4679 adb -w a.out
4680 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4681 control-d
4682
4683 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4684 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4685
4686 adb -w a.out
4687 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4688 control-d
4689
4690 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4691 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4692 external linkage.
4693
4694 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4695 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4696
4697 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4698
4699 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4700 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4701 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4702 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4703 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4704 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4705
4706 * New DOS host serial code
4707
4708 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4709 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4710 a PC's serial port.
4711
4712 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4713
4714 * New "complete" command
4715
4716 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4717 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4718
4719 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4720
4721 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4722 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4723
4724 * Breakpoint hit counts
4725
4726 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4727 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4728 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4729 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4730 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4731 that breakpoint.
4732
4733 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4734
4735 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4736 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4737 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4738
4739 * Shared library breakpoints
4740
4741 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4742 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4743
4744 * Hardware watchpoints
4745
4746 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4747 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4748
4749 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4750
4751 * Annotations
4752
4753 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4754 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4755
4756 * Improved Irix 5 support
4757
4758 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4759
4760 * Improved HPPA support
4761
4762 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4763
4764 * New native configurations
4765
4766 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4767 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4768 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4769 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4770
4771 * New targets
4772
4773 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4774 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4775 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4776
4777 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4778
4779 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4780 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4781
4782 * Fixes
4783
4784 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4785 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4786
4787 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4788
4789 * Irix 5 is now supported
4790
4791 * HPPA support
4792
4793 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4794 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4795 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4796 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4797 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4798
4799
4800 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4801
4802 * User visible changes:
4803
4804 * Remote Debugging
4805
4806 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4807 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4808 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4809 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4810 debugging info for the mips target).
4811
4812 * DEC Alpha native support
4813
4814 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4815 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4816 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4817 Alpha-specific notes.
4818
4819 * Preliminary thread implementation
4820
4821 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4822
4823 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4824
4825 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4826 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4827 for details).
4828
4829 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4830
4831 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4832 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4833 call methods, ...etc.
4834
4835 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4836
4837 * User visible changes:
4838
4839 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4840 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4841 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4842 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4843
4844 Filename completion now works.
4845
4846 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4847 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4848 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4849
4850 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4851 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4852 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4853 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4854 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4855
4856 * DEC alpha support
4857
4858 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4859 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4860
4861
4862 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4863
4864 * Testsuite
4865
4866 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4867 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4868 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4869
4870 * C++ demangling
4871
4872 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4873 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4874 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4875 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4876 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4877
4878 * Simulators
4879
4880 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4881 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4882 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4883
4884 * New targets supported
4885
4886 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4887 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4888 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4889 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4890 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4891
4892 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4893 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4894 GO32 memory extender.
4895
4896 * New remote protocols
4897
4898 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4899
4900 * New source languages supported
4901
4902 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4903 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4904 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4905
4906
4907 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4908
4909 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4910
4911 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4912 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4913 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4914 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4915 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4916 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4917
4918 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4919
4920 * Faster and better demangling
4921
4922 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4923 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4924 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4925 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4926 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4927 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4928 symbol lookups.
4929
4930 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4931 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4932 compiler does not actually implement.
4933
4934 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4935
4936 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4937 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4938 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4939 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4940 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4941 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4942 fix.
4943
4944 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4945 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4946
4947 * Improved configure script
4948
4949 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4950 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4951 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4952 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4953
4954 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4955 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4956 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4957 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4958 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4959 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4960
4961 * Documentation improvements
4962
4963 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4964 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4965 before submitting changes.
4966
4967 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4968 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4969 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4970 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4971 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4972
4973 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4974 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4975 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4976 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4977 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4978 around this problem.
4979
4980 * New features
4981
4982 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4983 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4984 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4985 the target program.
4986
4987 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4988 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4989
4990 * New native hosts supported
4991
4992 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4993 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4994
4995 * New targets supported
4996
4997 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4998
4999 * New file formats supported
5000
5001 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5002 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5003
5004 * Major bug fixes
5005
5006 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5007
5008 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5009 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5010
5011 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5012 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5013 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5014
5015 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5016 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5017
5018 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5019 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5020 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5021 libraries.
5022
5023 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5024 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5025 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5026 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5027 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5028
5029 * Internal improvements
5030
5031 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5032 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5033
5034 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5035 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5036 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5037 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5038 shared code that handles any of them.
5039
5040 * New command line options
5041
5042 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5043
5044 * Mmalloc licensing
5045
5046 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5047 General Public License.
5048
5049 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5050
5051 * Host/native/target split
5052
5053 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5054 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5055 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5056 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5057 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5058
5059 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5060 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5061 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5062 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5063 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5064 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5065 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5066
5067 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5068 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5069 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5070
5071 * New hosts supported
5072
5073 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5074 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5075 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5076
5077 * New targets supported
5078
5079 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5080 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5081
5082 * New native hosts supported
5083
5084 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5085 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5086 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5087
5088 * New file formats supported
5089
5090 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5091 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5092 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5093
5094 * New commands
5095
5096 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5097 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5098 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5099
5100 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5101
5102 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5103 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5104 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5105 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5106
5107 * C++ improvements
5108
5109 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5110 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5111 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5112
5113 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5114
5115 * Major bug fixes
5116
5117 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5118 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5119 by the compiler.
5120
5121 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5122 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5123
5124 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5125 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5126 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5127 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5128 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5129 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5130
5131 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5132 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5133 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5134 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5135
5136 * AMD 29k support
5137
5138 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5139 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5140 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5141 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5142 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5143
5144 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5145 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5146 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5147 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5148
5149 * Remote interfaces
5150
5151 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5152 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5153 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5154 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5155 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5156 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5157 each instruction being stepped through.
5158
5159 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5160 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5161
5162 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5163 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5164 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5165 processor with a serial port.
5166
5167 * Configuration
5168
5169 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5170 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5171 supported, and what files each one uses.
5172
5173 * Library changes
5174
5175 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5176 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5177 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5178 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5179
5180 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5181 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5182 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5183 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5184
5185 * Documentation
5186
5187 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5188 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5189 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5190 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5191 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5192 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5193
5194 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5195
5196
5197 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5198
5199 * Better support for C++ function names
5200
5201 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5202 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5203 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5204 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5205 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5206
5207 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5208 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5209 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5210 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5211 for the list of formats.
5212
5213 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5214
5215 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5216 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5217 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5218 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5219 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5220 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5221 this problem.)
5222
5223 * New 'maintenance' command
5224
5225 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5226 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5227 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5228
5229 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5230 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5231 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5232 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5233 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5234 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5235
5236 The following commands are new:
5237
5238 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5239 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5240 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5241
5242 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5243
5244 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5245 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5246 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5247 read after argv processing.
5248
5249 * New hosts supported
5250
5251 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5252
5253 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5254
5255 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5256 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5257 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5258 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5259 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5260 It costs extra.
5261
5262 * New targets supported
5263
5264 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5265
5266 * More smarts about finding #include files
5267
5268 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5269 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5270 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5271 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5272 the one that contains your sources.
5273
5274 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5275 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5276 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5277
5278 * Interesting infernals change
5279
5280 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5281 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5282 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5283 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5284
5285 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5286
5287 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5288 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5289 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5290
5291 See the ChangeLog for details.
5292
5293 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5294
5295 * New machines supported (host and target)
5296
5297 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5298
5299 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5300
5301 * New malloc package
5302
5303 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5304 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5305 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5306 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5307 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5308 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5309
5310 * info proc
5311
5312 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5313 'help info proc' for details.
5314
5315 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5316
5317 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5318 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5319 possible.
5320
5321 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5322
5323 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5324 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5325 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5326 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5327 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5328 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5329
5330 * Cross byte order fixes
5331
5332 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5333 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5334
5335 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5336
5337 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5338 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5339 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5340 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5341 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5342 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5343 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5344 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5345 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5346 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5347
5348 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5349 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5350 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5351 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5352
5353 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5354 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5355 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5356 use is:
5357
5358 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5359
5360 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5361 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5362 shared across multiple host platforms.
5363
5364 * longjmp() handling
5365
5366 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5367 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5368 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5369 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5370
5371 * Solaris 2.0
5372
5373 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5374 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5375 reading symbols.
5376
5377 * Bug fixes
5378
5379 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5380 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5381 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5382
5383 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5384
5385 * New machines supported (host and target)
5386
5387 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5388 (except core files)
5389 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5390 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5391
5392 * New machines supported (target)
5393
5394 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5395
5396 * C++ support
5397
5398 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5399 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5400 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5401
5402 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5403 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5404 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5405 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5406 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5407 released.
5408
5409 * New features for SVR4
5410
5411 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5412 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5413 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5414
5415 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5416 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5417 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5418
5419 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5420 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5421
5422 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5423
5424 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5425 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5426 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5427 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5428 same code linked statically.
5429
5430 * New Getopt
5431
5432 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5433 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5434 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5435 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5436 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5437 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5438
5439 * Bugs fixed
5440
5441 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5442 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5443 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5444
5445
5446 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5447
5448 * New machines supported (host and target)
5449
5450 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5451 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5452 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5453
5454 * Almost SCO Unix support
5455
5456 We had hoped to support:
5457 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5458 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5459 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5460 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5461
5462 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5463
5464 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5465 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5466 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5467 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5468 reqired (if any).
5469
5470 * New Readline
5471
5472 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5473 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5474 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5475
5476 * Bugs fixed
5477
5478 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5479 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5480 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5481
5482 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5483
5484 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5485 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5486 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5487
5488 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5489 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5490 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5491 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5492 version 2.
5493
5494 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5495 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5496 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5497 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5498 situation somewhat.
5499
5500 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5501 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5502 methods.
5503
5504 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5505 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5506 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5507
5508
5509 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5510
5511 * Improved configuration
5512
5513 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5514 Porting BFD is simpler.
5515
5516 * Stepping improved
5517
5518 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5519 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5520 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5521 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5522
5523 * Bug fixing
5524
5525 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5526
5527 * New host supported (not target)
5528
5529 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5530
5531
5532 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5533
5534 * Multiple source language support
5535
5536 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5537 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5538 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5539 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5540 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5541 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5542
5543 * GDB and Modula-2
5544
5545 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5546 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5547 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5548 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5549
5550 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5551 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5552 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5553
5554 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5555 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5556
5557 * set write on/off
5558
5559 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5560 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5561 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5562 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5563 effect immediately.
5564
5565 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5566
5567 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5568 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5569 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5570 examining core files.
5571
5572 * set listsize
5573
5574 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5575 The default is 10.
5576
5577 * New machines supported (host and target)
5578
5579 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5580 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5581 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5582
5583 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5584
5585 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5586
5587 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5588
5589 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5590 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5591 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5592
5593 * New remote interfaces
5594
5595 AMD 29000 Adapt
5596 AMD 29000 Minimon
5597
5598
5599 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5600
5601 * New Facilities
5602
5603 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5604
5605 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5606 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5607 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5608 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5609 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5610 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5611 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5612 stub on the target system.
5613
5614 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5615
5616 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5617 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5618 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5619
5620 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5621 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5622
5623
5624 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5625
5626 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5627 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5628
5629 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5630 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5631 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5632
5633 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5634 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5635 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5636 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5637
5638 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5639 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5640 it is already running. Default is ON.
5641
5642 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5643 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5644 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5645 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5646 Default is ON.
5647
5648 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5649 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5650 or the value of the environment variable
5651 GDBHISTFILE.
5652
5653 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5654 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5655 HISTSIZE.
5656
5657 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5658 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5659 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5660
5661 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5662 history expansion will be performed on
5663 command line input. The default is OFF.
5664
5665 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5666 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5667 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5668
5669 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5670 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5671 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5672 variable TERM.
5673
5674 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5675 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5676 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5677 variable TERM.
5678
5679 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5680 ``set width'' instead.
5681
5682 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5683 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5684 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5685 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5686
5687 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5688 is OFF.
5689
5690 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5691 "raw" form if off.
5692
5693 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5694 like instructions.
5695
5696 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5697
5698
5699 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5700
5701 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5702 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5703 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5704 window.
5705
5706
5707 * Support for Shared Libraries
5708
5709 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5710 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5711 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5712 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5713 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5714 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5715 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5716 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5717
5718 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5719 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5720 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5721
5722 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5723
5724
5725 * Watchpoints
5726
5727 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5728 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5729 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5730 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5731 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5732 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5733
5734 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5735
5736 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5737
5738 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5739 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5740 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5741
5742
5743 * C++ multiple inheritance
5744
5745 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5746 for C++ programs.
5747
5748 * C++ exception handling
5749
5750 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5751 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5752 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5753 handler's context).
5754
5755 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5756 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5757 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5758
5759 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5760 current stack frame.
5761
5762
5763 * Minor command changes
5764
5765 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5766 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5767 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5768
5769 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5770 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5771 frames without printing.
5772
5773 * New directory command
5774
5775 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5776 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5777 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5778 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5779 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5780
5781 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5782
5783 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5784 for more details.
5785
5786 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5787 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5788 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5789 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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