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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.1
5
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6* Windows Thread Information Block access.
7
8 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
9 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
10 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
11 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
12 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
13 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
14
15* New remote packets
16
17qGetTIBAddr
18
19 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
20
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21* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
22 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
23 a directory.
24
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25* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
26
27 - GDBserver now support tracepoints. The feature is currently
28 supported by the i386-linux and amd64-linux builds.
29
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30 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
31
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32* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
33 it understands register description.
34
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35* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
36
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37* X86 general purpose registers
38
39 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
40 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
41 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
42 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
43 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
44
95a42b64 45* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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46 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
47 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
48 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
49 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
50 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 51
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52* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
53 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
54 in the specified file.
55
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56* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
57 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
58 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
59 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
60 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
61 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
62 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
63 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
64 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
65 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
66
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67* New commands
68
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69set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
70show target-file-system-kind
71 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
72 names.
73
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74save breakpoints <filename>
75 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
76 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
77 definitions, use the `source' command.
78
79`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
80is now deprecated.
81
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82* Python scripting
83
adc36818 84** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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85 tables, program spaces, and frame's code blocks. Additionally, GDB
86 Parameters can now be created from the API, and manipulated via
87 set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 88
fa33c3cd 89** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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90 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
91
92** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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93
94** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 95
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96** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
97 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
98 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
99
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100* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
101there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
102tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
103regular breakpoints.
104
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105* New targets
106
107ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
108
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109* D language support.
110 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
111 language.
112
bfbf3774 113*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 114
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115* C++ Improvements
116
117 ** Namespace Support
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118
119 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
120 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
121 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
122 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
123 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
124
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125 ** Bug Fixes
126
127 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
128 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
129 qualified name.
130
131 ** Cast Operators
132
133 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
134 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
135
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136* New targets
137
138Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 139Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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140
141* New Simulators
142
143Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 144Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 145
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146* Multi-program debugging.
147
148 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
149 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
150 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
151 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
152 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
153 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
154 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
155 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
156
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157* New tracing features
158
159 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
160
161 ** Trace state variables
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162
163 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
164 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
165 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
166 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
167 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
168 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
169 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
170 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
171 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
172 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 173
d5551862 174 ** Fast tracepoints
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175
176 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
177 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
178 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
179 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
180 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
181 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
182 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
183 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
184 the regular trace command.
185
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186 ** Disconnected tracing
187
188 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
189 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
190 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
191 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
192 connection is lost unexpectedly.
193
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194 ** Trace files
195
196 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
197 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
198 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
199 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
200 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
201 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
202 <name>".
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203
204 ** Circular trace buffer
205
206 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
207 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
208 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
209 not be available for all target agents.
210
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211* Changed commands
212
213disassemble
214 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
215 the arguments to be comma-separated.
216
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217info variables
218 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
219 which only declare a variable are not shown.
220
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221source
222 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
223 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
224 support.
225
226 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
227 "set script-extension" (see below).
228
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229* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
230
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231record save [<FILENAME>]
232 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
233 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
234
235record restore <FILENAME>
236 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
237 earlier time, for replay debugging.
238
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239add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
240 Add a new inferior.
241
242clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
243 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
244 inferior has loaded.
245
246remove-inferior ID
247 Remove an inferior.
248
249maint info program-spaces
250 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
251
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252set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
253show remote interrupt-sequence
254 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
255 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
256 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
257 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
258 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
259
260set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
261show remote interrupt-on-connect
262 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
263 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
264 Linux kernel.
265
266set remotebreak [on | off]
267show remotebreak
268Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
269
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270tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
271 Create or modify a trace state variable.
272
273info tvariables
274 List trace state variables and their values.
275
276delete tvariable $NAME ...
277 Delete one or more trace state variables.
278
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279teval EXPR, ...
280 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
281 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
282
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283ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
284 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
285
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286* New expression syntax
287
288 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
289 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
290
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291* New options
292
293set follow-exec-mode new|same
294show follow-exec-mode
295 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
296 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
297 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
298
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299set default-collect EXPR, ...
300show default-collect
301 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
302 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
303 such as registers or a critical global variable.
304
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305set disconnected-tracing
306show disconnected-tracing
307 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
308 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
309 upon disconnection.
310
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311set circular-trace-buffer
312show circular-trace-buffer
313 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
314 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
315 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
316 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
317
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318set script-extension off|soft|strict
319show script-extension
320 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
321 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
322 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
323 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
324 evaluation failed.
325 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
326
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327set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
328show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
329 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
330 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
331 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
332 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
333 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
334 is on.
335
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336* Python API Improvements
337
338 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
339 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
340 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
341
342 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
343 `is_base_class' attribute.
344
345 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
346
347 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
348 evaluate an expression.
349
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350* New remote packets
351
352QTDV
353 Define a trace state variable.
354
355qTV
356 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
357
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358QTDisconnected
359 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
360
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361QTBuffer:circular
362 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
363
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364qTfP, qTsP
365 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
366
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367* Bug fixes
368
369Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
370
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371Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
372much more reliable. In particular:
373 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
374 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
375 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
376 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
377 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
378 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
379 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
380 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
381 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
382 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
383 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
384 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
385 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
386 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
387 non-threaded programs.
388
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389PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
390This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
391libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
392executable program.
393
abc7453d 394*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 395
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396* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
397dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
398them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
399for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
400"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
401
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402* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
403breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
404or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
405the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
406for tracepoint actions.
407
e6158f16 408* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
7280022e 409in hex as well as in symbolic form.
e6158f16 410
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411* Process record and replay
412
413 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
414 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
415 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
416 execute commands.
417
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418* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
419step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
420set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
421reverse execution.
422
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423* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
424feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4252.6.28 or later.
426
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427* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
428target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
429char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
430literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
431U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
432`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
433system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
434the installation instructions for more information.
435
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436* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
437remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
438with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
439the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
440
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441* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
442and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
443
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444* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
445now complete on file names.
446
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447* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
448completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
449For instance, consider:
450
451 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
452 # struct example variable;
453 (gdb) p variable.
454
455If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
456completions will be "f1" and "f2".
457
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458* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
459the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
460
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461* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
462operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
463macros.
464
47a3467a 465* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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466the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
467implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
468
469* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
470registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
471can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
472and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 473
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474* New remote packets
475
476qSearch:memory:
477 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
478
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479QStartNoAckMode
480 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
481 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
482 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
483
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484vKill
485 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
486 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
487
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488qXfer:osdata:read
489 Obtains additional operating system information
490
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491qXfer:siginfo:read
492qXfer:siginfo:write
493 Read or write additional signal information.
494
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495* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
496
497 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
498 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
499 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
500
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501* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
502source+assembly.
503
c055b101 504* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 505DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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506
507* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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508and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
509`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 510
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511* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
512with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
513
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514* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
515
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516* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
517
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518* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
519which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
520
1fddbabb 521* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 522list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 523
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524* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
525conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
526have also been fixed.
527
bfb8797a 528* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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529From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
530are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 531
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532* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
533example, given:
534
535 template<typename T> class C { };
536 C<char const *> c;
537
538GDB will now correctly handle all of:
539
540 ptype C<char const *>
541 ptype C<char const*>
542 ptype C<const char *>
543 ptype C<const char*>
544
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545* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
546
547 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
548 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
549
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550 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
551 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
552 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
553
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554 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
555 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
556
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557 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
558 gdbserver.
559
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560 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
561 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
562
563 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
564 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
565 as appropriate.
566
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567* Python scripting
568
569 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
570 available is determined at configure time.
571
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572 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
573
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574* Ada tasking support
575
576 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
577 been introduced:
578
579 info tasks
580 Print the list of Ada tasks.
581 info task N
582 Print detailed information about task number N.
583 task
584 Print the task number of the current task.
585 task N
586 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
587
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588* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
589add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
590
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591* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
592
593 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
594 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
595 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
596 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
597 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
598 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
599 below.
600
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601* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
602"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
603information.
604
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605* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
606to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
607architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
608See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
609more information.
610
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611* Multi-architecture debugging.
612
613 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
614 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
615 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
616 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
617 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
618
619* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
620use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
621Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
622powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
623--enable-targets configure option.
624
11ade57a
PA
625* Non-stop mode debugging.
626
627 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
628 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
629 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
630 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
631 section in the user manual for more information.
632
633 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
634 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
635 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
636 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
637 extensions on linux targets.
638
d7713ae0 639* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 640
a96d9b2e
SDJ
641catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
642 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
643 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
644 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
645 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
646 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
647 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
648 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
649 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
650
08388c79
DE
651find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
652 val1 [, val2, ...]
653 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
654
d57a3c85
TJB
655maint set python print-stack
656maint show python print-stack
657 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
658
659python [CODE]
660 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
661
d7713ae0
EZ
662macro define
663macro list
664macro undef
665 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
666 interactively.
667
668info os processes
669 Show operating system information about processes.
670
2277426b
PA
671info inferiors
672 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
673
674inferior NUM
675 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
676
677detach inferior NUM
678 Detach from inferior number NUM.
679
680kill inferior NUM
681 Kill inferior number NUM.
682
d7713ae0
EZ
683* New options
684
3285f3fe
UW
685set spu stop-on-load
686show spu stop-on-load
687 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
688
ff1a52c6
UW
689set spu auto-flush-cache
690show spu auto-flush-cache
691 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
692 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
693
d7713ae0
EZ
694set sh calling-convention
695show sh calling-convention
696 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
697
e0a3ce09 698set debug timestamp
75feb17d 699show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
700 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
701
702set disassemble-next-line
703show disassemble-next-line
704 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
705 the debuggee stops.
706
707set remote noack-packet
708show remote noack-packet
709 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
710 under "New remote packets."
711
712set remote query-attached-packet
713show remote query-attached-packet
714 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
715
716set remote read-siginfo-object
717show remote read-siginfo-object
718 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
719 packet.
720
721set remote write-siginfo-object
722show remote write-siginfo-object
723 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
724 packet.
725
40ab02ce
MS
726set remote reverse-continue
727show remote reverse-continue
728 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
729
730set remote reverse-step
731show remote reverse-step
732 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
733
d7713ae0
EZ
734set displaced-stepping
735show displaced-stepping
736 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
737 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
738 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
739
740set debug displaced
741show debug displaced
742 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
743
744maint set internal-error
745maint show internal-error
746 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
747
748maint set internal-warning
749maint show internal-warning
750 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 751
ccd213ac
DJ
752set exec-wrapper
753show exec-wrapper
754unset exec-wrapper
755 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 756
aad4b048
JB
757set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
758show multiple-symbols
759 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
760 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
761 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
762
74960c60
VP
763set breakpoint always-inserted
764show breakpoint always-inserted
765 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
766 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
767 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
768
0428b8f5
DJ
769set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
770show arm fallback-mode
771set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
772show arm force-mode
773 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
774 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
775 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
776 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
777
10568435
JK
778set disable-randomization
779show disable-randomization
780 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
781 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
782 multiple debugging sessions.
783
d7713ae0
EZ
784set non-stop
785show non-stop
786 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
787 a breakpoint.
788
b3eb342c 789set target-async
d7713ae0 790show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
791 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
792 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
793 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
794 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
795
6c7a06a3
TT
796set target-wide-charset
797show target-wide-charset
798 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
799 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
800
84603566
SL
801set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
802show tcp auto-retry
803set tcp connect-timeout
804show tcp connect-timeout
805 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
806 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
807 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
808
17a37d48
PP
809set libthread-db-search-path
810show libthread-db-search-path
811 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
812 libthread_db.
813
d4db2f36
PA
814set schedule-multiple (on|off)
815show schedule-multiple
816 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
817 the current process.
818
4e5d721f
DE
819set stack-cache
820show stack-cache
821 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
822 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
823 affecting correctness.
824
910c5da8
JB
825set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
826show interactive-mode
827 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
828 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
829 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
830 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
831 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
832
2277426b
PA
833* Removed commands
834
835info forks
836 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
837 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
838 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
839 command.
840
841fork NUM
842 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
843 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
844 alias for the `fork' command.
845
846process PID
847 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
848 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
849 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
850
851delete fork NUM
852 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
853 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
854 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
855 fork' command.
856
857detach fork NUM
858 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
859 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
860 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
861 fork' command.
862
a80b95ba
TG
863* New native configurations
864
865x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
866
b8bfd3ed
JB
867x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
868
75a2d5e7
TT
869* New targets
870
c28c63d8 871Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 872x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 873x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 874S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 875
6de3146c
PA
876* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
877 (mingw32ce) debugging.
878
d5cbbe6e
JB
879* Removed commands
880
881catch load
882catch unload
883 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
884
75feb17d 885*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 886
af5ca30d
NH
887* New native configurations
888
889NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 890Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
891
892* New targets
893
894NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 895Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 896
7a404eba
PA
897* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
898
899 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
900 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
901 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
902 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
903
430ebac9
PA
904* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
905(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
906
fe6fbf8b 907* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 908is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
909
910* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
911including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
912and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 913
10665d76
JB
914* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
915accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
916more than one contiguous range of addresses.
917
7cc46491
DJ
918* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
919
d71340b8
DJ
920* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
921registers on PowerPC targets.
922
523c4513
DJ
923* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
924targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
925
a6b151f1
DJ
926* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
927commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
928
2d717e4f
DJ
929* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
930extended-remote mode.
931
24a836bd 932* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
933The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
934error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
935The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 936
d0c678e6
UW
937* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
938building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
939target architectures.
940
d64a946d
TJB
941* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
942Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
943now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
944stored in two consecutive float registers.
945
ee163bf5
VP
946* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
947breakpoints now.
948
b93b6ca7 949* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
950Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
951include:
b93b6ca7
JB
952 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
953 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
954 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
955 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
956 of an assignment
957 - Improved command completion in Ada
958 - Several bug fixes
959
d001be7a
DJ
960* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
961process.
962
a6b151f1
DJ
963* New commands
964
6d53d0af
JB
965set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
966show print frame-arguments
967 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
968 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
969
a6b151f1
DJ
970remote put
971remote get
972remote delete
973 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
974
975* New MI commands
976
977-target-file-put
978-target-file-get
979-target-file-delete
980 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
981
982* New remote packets
983
984vFile:open:
985vFile:close:
986vFile:pread:
987vFile:pwrite:
988vFile:unlink:
989 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 990
2d717e4f
DJ
991vAttach
992 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
993 mode.
994
995vRun
996 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
997
8d5f9c6f 998*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 999
19d378fc
MS
1000* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1001bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1002Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1003
3a40aaa0
UW
1004* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1005symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1006-Bsymbolic linker option.
1007
a6ec25f2
BW
1008* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1009recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1010is not supported.
1011
6dd09645
JB
1012* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1013frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1014
c9bb8148
DJ
1015* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
101632-bit or 64-bit register values.
1017
0d5de010
DJ
1018* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1019
23181151
DJ
1020* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1021target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1022a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1023
ea37ba09
DJ
1024* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1025automatically displayed as character or string data.
1026
1027* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1028arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1029as strings.
e1f48ead 1030
123dc839
DJ
1031* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1032for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1033only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1034
05a4558a
DJ
1035* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1036iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1037
7c963485
PA
1038* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1039ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1040has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1041
b18be20d
DJ
1042* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1043
0ca420ce
UW
1044* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1045
31d99776
DJ
1046* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1047layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1048segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1049
a4642986
MR
1050* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1051immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1052
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1053* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1054"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1055packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1056where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1057Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1058
1059* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1060(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1061
1062* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1063according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1064
c9bb8148
DJ
1065* New commands
1066
23776285
MR
1067set remoteflow
1068show remoteflow
1069 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1070 when debugging using remote targets.
1071
c9bb8148
DJ
1072set mem inaccessible-by-default
1073show mem inaccessible-by-default
1074 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1075 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1076 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1077 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1078 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1079
1080set breakpoint auto-hw
1081show breakpoint auto-hw
1082 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1083 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1084 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1085 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1086 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1087 including "next" and "finish".
1088
0e420bd8
JB
1089catch exception
1090catch exception unhandled
1091 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1092
1093catch assert
1094 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1095
f822c95b
DJ
1096set sysroot
1097show sysroot
1098 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1099 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1100 an alias to "set sysroot".
1101
83cc5c53
UW
1102info spu
1103 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1104 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1105 architecture.
1106
bd372731
MK
1107* New native configurations
1108
1109OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1110
23181151
DJ
1111set tdesc filename
1112unset tdesc filename
1113show tdesc filename
1114 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1115 not query the target for its built-in description.
1116
c9bb8148
DJ
1117* New targets
1118
54fe9172 1119OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1120MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1121Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1122
6dd09645
JB
1123* New remote packets
1124
1125QPassSignals:
1126 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1127 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1128
23181151
DJ
1129qXfer:features:read:
1130 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1131 features.
6dd09645 1132
83cc5c53
UW
1133qXfer:spu:read:
1134qXfer:spu:write:
1135 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1136 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1137
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1138qXfer:libraries:read:
1139 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1140 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1141 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1142 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1143
483367ee
DJ
1144* Removed targets
1145
1146Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1147
d08950c4
UW
1148alpha*-*-osf1*
1149alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1150d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1151hppa*-*-hiux*
1152i[34567]86-ncr-*
1153i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1154i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1155i[34567]86-*-netware*
1156i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1157i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1158i[34567]86-*-sco*
1159i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1160i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1161i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1162i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1163i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1164i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1165i[34567]86-*-isc*
1166m68*-cisco*-*
1167m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1168mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1169rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1170sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1171
7ce59000
DJ
1172* Other removed features
1173
1174target abug
1175target cpu32bug
1176target est
1177target rom68k
1178
1179 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1180
ea35711c
DJ
1181target hms
1182target e7000
1183target sh3
1184target sh3e
1185
1186 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1187 H8/300.
1188
1189target ocd
1190
1191 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1192 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1193 interfaces.
1194
7ce59000
DJ
1195DWARF 1 support
1196
1197 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1198 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1199
54d61198
DJ
1200Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1201
1202 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1203 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1204 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1205 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1206
ea35711c
DJ
1207MIPS ".pdr" sections
1208
1209 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1210 in debugging information.
1211
1212Scheme support
1213
1214 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1215 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1216
1a69e1e4
DJ
1217set mips stack-arg-size
1218set mips saved-gpreg-size
1219
1220 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1221
6dd09645 1222*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1223
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1224* New targets
1225
1226Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1227Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1228
6aec2e11
DJ
1229* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1230(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1231running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1232
1233* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1234Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1235supported.
1236
17218d91
DJ
1237* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1238broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1239
9ebce043
DJ
1240* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1241stub provides the required support.
1242
7d3d3ece
DJ
1243* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1244longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1245
4f8253f3
JB
1246* New commands
1247
1248set substitute-path
1249unset substitute-path
1250show substitute-path
1251 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1252 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1253 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1254 between compilation and debugging.
1255
9fa66fd7
AS
1256set trace-commands
1257show trace-commands
1258 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1259 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1260 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1261
1f5befc1
DJ
1262* REMOVED features
1263
1264The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1265
2ec3381a
DJ
1266Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1267an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1268
3d00d119
DJ
1269The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1270
be2a5f71
DJ
1271* New remote packets
1272
1273qSupported:
1274 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1275 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1276 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1277 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1278 target.
1279
0876f84a
DJ
1280qXfer:auxv:read:
1281 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1282 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1283
9ebce043
DJ
1284qXfer:memory-map:read:
1285 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1286 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1287
1288vFlashErase:
1289vFlashWrite:
1290vFlashDone:
1291 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1292
0876f84a
DJ
1293* Removed remote packets
1294
1295qPart:auxv:read:
1296 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1297 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1298
e374b601 1299*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1300
96309189
MS
1301* New targets
1302
1303Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1304
1305Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1306
53e5f3cf
AS
1307* New commands
1308
1309init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1310 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1311
ac264b3b
MS
1312The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1313
1314checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1315
1316restart <n> Return the program state to a
1317 previously saved state.
1318
1319info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1320
1321delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1322
1323set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1324 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1325
1326info forks List forks of the user program that
1327 are available to be debugged.
1328
1329fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1330 forks of the user program that are
1331 available to be debugged.
1332
1333delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1334 that are available to be debugged (and
1335 kill the forked process).
1336
1337detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1338 that are available to be debugged (and
1339 allow the process to continue).
1340
3950dc3f
NS
1341* New architecture
1342
1343Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1344
0ea3f30e
DJ
1345* Improved Windows host support
1346
1347GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1348native console support, and remote communications using either
1349network sockets or serial ports.
1350
f79daebb
GM
1351* Improved Modula-2 language support
1352
1353GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1354basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1355pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1356printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1357written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1358GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1359
acab6ab2
MM
1360* REMOVED features
1361
1362The ARM rdi-share module.
1363
f4267320
DJ
1364The Netware NLM debug server.
1365
53e5f3cf 1366*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1367
e0ecbda1
MK
1368* New native configurations
1369
02a677ac 1370OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1371OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1372
d64a6579
KB
1373* New targets
1374
1375Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1376
b33a6190
AS
1377* New command line options
1378
1379--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1380--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1381 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1382--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1383 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1384 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1385 with the --command (-x) option.
1386
11dced61
AC
1387* Deprecated commands removed
1388
1389The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1390removed:
1391
1392 Command Replacement
1393 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1394 othernames set arm disassembler
1395 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1396 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1397 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1398 regs info registers
1399
6fe85783
MK
1400* New BSD user-level threads support
1401
1402It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1403library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1404configurations are:
1405
1406FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1407FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1408OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1409
1410Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1411are not yet supported.
1412
5260ca71
MS
1413* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1414(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1415
e84ecc99
AC
1416* REMOVED configurations and files
1417
1418VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1419Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1420National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1421
31e35378
JB
1422* New "set print array-indexes" command
1423
1424After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1425when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1426behavior.
1427
e85e5c83
MK
1428* VAX floating point support
1429
1430GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1431
d91e9901
AS
1432* User-defined command support
1433
1434In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1435to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1436section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1437
f2cb65ca
MC
1438*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1439
f47b1503
AS
1440* New command line option
1441
1442GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1443debugging.
1444
f2cb65ca
MC
1445* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1446
1447GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1448information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1449by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1450proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1451to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1452
d08c0230
AC
1453* Internationalization
1454
1455When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1456internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1457continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1458
117ea3cf
PH
1459* Ada
1460
1461Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1462implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1463into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1464
d08c0230
AC
1465* New native configurations
1466
1467GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1468
1469* Remote 'p' packet
1470
1471GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1472packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1473
1474* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1475
1476GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1477The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1478features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1479i386 application).
1480
1481GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1482compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1483continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1484configurations:
1485
1486hppa-*-hpux
1487ia64-*-aix
1488mips-*-irix*
1489*-*-lynx
1490mips-*-linux-gnu
1491sds protocol
1492xdr protocol
1493powerpc bdm protocol
1494
1495Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1496made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1497
1498* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1499
1500Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1501been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1502configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1503permanently REMOVED.
1504
1505h8300-*-*
1506mcore-*-*
1507mn10300-*-*
1508ns32k-*-*
1509sh64-*-*
1510v850-*-*
1511
ebb7c577
AC
1512*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1513
1514* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1515
1516When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1517heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1518been fixed.
1519
1520* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1521
1522When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1523fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1524IRIX long double values).
1525
1526* VAX and "next"
1527
1528A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1529command. This problem has been fixed.
1530
860660cb 1531*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1532
0dea2468
AC
1533* Fix for ``many threads''
1534
1535On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1536rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1537error message:
1538
1539 ptrace: No such process.
1540 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1541
1542This problem has been fixed.
1543
2c07db7a
AC
1544* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1545
1546Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1547GDB to dump core).
1548
c23968a2
JB
1549* New ``start'' command.
1550
1551This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1552
71009278
MK
1553* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1554
1555Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1556live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1557platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1558
1559FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1560FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1561NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1562NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1563NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1564OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1565OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1566OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1567OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1568
3c0b7db2
AC
1569* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1570
1571Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1572These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1573of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1574call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1575signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1576
73cc75f3
AC
1577Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1578features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1579include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1580
7243600a
BF
1581* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1582
6f606e1c
MK
1583* New native configurations
1584
97dc871c 1585GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1586OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1587OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1588OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1589OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1590NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1591OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1592
a1b461bf
AC
1593* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1594
1595GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1596The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1597including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1598migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1599compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1600work, was also included.
1601
1602GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1603module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1604
1605h8300-*-*
1606mcore-*-*
1607mn10300-*-*
1608ns32k-*-*
1609sh64-*-*
1610v850-*-*
1611xstormy16-*-*
1612
1613Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1614made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1615
3c7012f5
AC
1616* REMOVED configurations and files
1617
1618Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1619Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1620Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1621Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1622Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1623AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1624Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1625decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1626riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1627sonymips mips-sony-*
1628sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1629
e5fe55f7
AC
1630*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1631
1632* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1633
1634The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1635GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1636command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1637program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1638with GDB".
1639
1640* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1641
1642Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1643libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1644cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1645GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1646shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1647the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1648are created.
1649
1650Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1651
1652* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1653
1654The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1655non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1656compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1657
1658* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1659
1660Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1661wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1662
1663* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1664
1665The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1666permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1667systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1668
1669* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1670
1671Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1672has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1673
1674* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1675
1676GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1677its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1678panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1679
1680* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1681
1682When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1683by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1684not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1685
faae5abe 1686*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1687
9175c9a3
MC
1688* Removed --with-mmalloc
1689
1690Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1691conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1692
3cc87ec0
MK
1693* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1694
1695The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1696the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1697and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1698you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1699
f0424ef6
MK
1700* Revised SPARC target
1701
1702The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1703FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1704support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1705from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1706(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1707
59659be2
ILT
1708* New C++ demangler
1709
1710GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1711names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1712with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1713programs.
1714
9e08b29b
DJ
1715* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1716
1717GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1718arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1719encountered these.
1720
8dfe8985
DC
1721* C++ nested types and namespaces
1722
1723GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1724improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1725is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1726Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1727namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1728"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1729frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1730if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1731GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1732
cced5e27
MK
1733* New native configurations
1734
1735NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1736OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1737OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1738OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1739OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1740
b4b4b794
KI
1741* New debugging protocols
1742
1743M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1744
7989c619
AC
1745* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1746
1747The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1748and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1749tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1750
5994185b
AC
1751* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1752
1753Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1754been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1755configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1756permanently REMOVED.
1757
1758Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1759Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1760Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1761Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1762Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1763AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1764Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1765decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1766riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1767sonymips mips-sony-*
1768sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1769
0ddabb4c
AC
1770* REMOVED configurations and files
1771
1772SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1773SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1774Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1775Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1776H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1777HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1778HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1779HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1780PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1781386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1782Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1783 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1784 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1785SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1786SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1787Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1788Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1789
c7f1390e
DJ
1790*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1791
1fe43d45
AC
1792* Objective-C
1793
1794Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1795integrated into GDB.
1796
e6beb428
AC
1797* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1798
1799DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1800information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1801By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1802backtraces.
1803
1804The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1805have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1806DWARF 2 CFI support.
1807
1808* Hosted file I/O.
1809
1810GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1811file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1812remote protocol documentation for details.
1813
1814* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1815
1816All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1817architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1818to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1819ppc32 on ppc64).
1820
1821* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1822
1823GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1824per-thread variables.
1825
1826* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1827
1828GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1829GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1830
1831* Separate debug info.
1832
1833GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1834automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1835of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1836system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1837and optional debug files.
1838
1839* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1840
1841DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1842describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1843debugger.
1844
1845GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1846for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1847
1848* Java
1849
1850A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1851Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1852considered "useable".
1853
85f8f974
DJ
1854* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1855
1856The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1857commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1858kernel.
1859
0fac0b41
DJ
1860* GDB supports logging output to a file
1861
1862There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1863used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1864
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1865* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1866
1867The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1868disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1869command.
1870
e286caf2 1871* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1872
1873The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1874registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1875
d28f9cdf
DJ
1876* Profiling support
1877
1878A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1879be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1880session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1881"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1882data, for more informative profiling results.
1883
da0f9dcd
AC
1884* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1885
1886The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1887option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1888"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1889
1890Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1891removed.
1892
fb9b6b35
JJ
1893Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1894Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1895Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1896 in a subsequent -var-update.
1897
954a4db8
MK
1898* New native configurations.
1899
1900FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1901
6760f9e6
JB
1902* Multi-arched targets.
1903
b4263afa 1904HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1905Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1906
1b831c93
AC
1907* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1908
1909Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1910been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1911configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1912permanently REMOVED.
1913
8b0e5691 1914Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1915Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1916H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1917HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1918HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1919HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1920PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1921Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1922 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1923 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1924Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1925Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1926
5835abe7
NC
1927* REMOVED configurations and files
1928
1929V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1930Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1931IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1932i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1933i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1934i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1935HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1936 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1937 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1938Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1939Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1940Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1941OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1942I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1943
a094c6fb
AC
1944* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1945
1946The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1947the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1948context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1949address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1950The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1951
299ffc64 1952*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1953
46248966
AC
1954* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1955
1956When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1957`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1958in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1959library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1960shared libs like mad''.
1961
b9d14705 1962* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1963
b9d14705
DJ
1964Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1965the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1966arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1967powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1968
e0e9281e
JB
1969* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1970
1971GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1972and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1973they expand.
1974
dd73b9bb
AC
1975The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1976invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1977
1978The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1979macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1980
e0e9281e
JB
1981Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1982information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1983your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1984information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1985
2250ee0c
CV
1986* Multi-arched targets.
1987
6e3ba3b8
JT
1988DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1989DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1990NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1991National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1992Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1993Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1994
cd9bfe15 1995* New targets.
e33ce519 1996
456f8b9d
DB
1997Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1998
e33ce519 1999
da8ca43d
JT
2000* New native configurations
2001
2002Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2003SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2004MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2005UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2006
cd9bfe15
AC
2007* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2008
2009Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2010been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2011configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2012permanently REMOVED.
2013
92eb23c5 2014Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2015OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2016IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2017Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2018Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2019Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2020i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2021i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2022i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2023HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2024 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2025 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2026I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2027
db034ac5
AC
2028* OBSOLETE languages
2029
2030CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2031
cd9bfe15
AC
2032* REMOVED configurations and files
2033
2034AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2035A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2036AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2037AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2038AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2039
2040testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2041
20f01a46
DH
2042* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2043
2044This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2045commands. The default is 1024.
2046
a5941fbf
MK
2047* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2048
2049Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2050
89743e04
MS
2051* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2052
2053These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2054to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2055from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2056
9fb14e79
JB
2057* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2058
2059The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2060including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2061of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2062
2037aebb
AC
2063*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2064
2065* New targets.
2066
2067Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2068
2069* Bug fixes
2070
2071gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2072mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2073Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2074
2075gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2076dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2077Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2078
2079Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2080Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2081By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2082
2083i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2084avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2085By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2086
37057839 2087*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2088
1a703748
MS
2089* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2090
2091This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2092really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2093In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2094target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2095This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2096(notably embedded) targets.
2097
cefd4ef5
MS
2098* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2099
55241689
AC
2100This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2101process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2102GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2103hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2104
352ed7b4
MS
2105* New command line option
2106
2107GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2108
2109* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2110
2111There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2112command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2113a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2114be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2115open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2116issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2117a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2118it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2119GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2120is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2121
fe419ffc
RE
2122* Changes in ARM configurations.
2123
2124Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2125configuration is fully multi-arch.
2126
eb7cedd9
MK
2127* New native configurations
2128
fe419ffc 2129ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2130x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2131AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2132Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2133
c9f63e6b
CV
2134* New targets
2135
2136Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2137
9b4ff276
AC
2138* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2139
2140Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2141been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2142configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2143permanently REMOVED.
2144
2145AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2146A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2147AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2148AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2149AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2150
b4ceaee6 2151testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2152
e2caac18
AC
2153* REMOVED configurations and files
2154
2155TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2156WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2157PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2158PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2159PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2160Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2161Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2162 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2163SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2164Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2165Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2166ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2167Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2168
c2a727fa
TT
2169* Changes to command line processing
2170
2171The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2172for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2173
467d8519
TT
2174* Changes to key bindings
2175
2176There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2177
7072a954
AC
2178*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2179
2180Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2181
2182Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2183corrupted.
2184
2185Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2186
2187Numerous documentation fixes.
2188
2189Numerous testsuite fixes.
2190
34f47bc4 2191*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2192
2193* New native configurations
2194
2195Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2196x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2197MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2198MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2199ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2200s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2201
bf64bfd6
AC
2202* New targets
2203
def90278 2204Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2205CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2206UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2207
17e78a56 2208* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2209
2210x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2211Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2212Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2213 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2214TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2215WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2216Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2217PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2218PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2219PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2220SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2221Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2222ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2223Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2224
17e78a56
AC
2225stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2226kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2227
7fcca85b
AC
2228Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2229been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2230configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2231permanently REMOVED.
2232
a196c81c 2233* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2234
2235Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2236Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2237Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2238ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2239Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2240ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2241
6d6b80e5 2242* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2243
6d6b80e5 2244GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2245sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2246present.
2247
bf64bfd6
AC
2248* Other news:
2249
e23194cb
EZ
2250* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2251
2252* The MI enabled by default.
2253
2254The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2255revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2256engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2257using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2258which is now deprecated.
2259
2260* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2261
2262GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2263main features are supported:
2264
2265 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2266
2267 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2268 extension;
2269
2270 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2271
2272 - a Pascal expression parser.
2273
2274However, some important features are not yet supported.
2275
2276 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2277
2278 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2279
2280 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2281 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2282
2283 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2284
2285 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2286
2287* Changes in completion.
2288
2289Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2290to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2291users expect at the shell prompt.
2292
2293Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2294`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2295program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2296files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2297be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2298considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2299name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2300
2301`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2302
2303* New platform-independent commands:
2304
2305It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2306hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2307documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2308
2309* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2310
d7275149
MK
2311Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2312revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2313many threads as your system allows you to have.
2314
e23194cb
EZ
2315Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2316
d7275149
MK
2317Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2318multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2319
2320* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2321
2322Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2323
e23194cb
EZ
2324GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2325debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2326supported.)
2327
2328* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2329
2330Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2331breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2332implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2333put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2334and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2335registers.
2336
2337The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2338debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2339watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2340
2341* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2342
2343New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2344the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2345
2346New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2347display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2348IDT.
2349
2350New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2351from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2352New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2353a given linear address.
2354
2355GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2356program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2357which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2358
2359DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2360
6c56c069
EZ
2361It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2362
e23194cb
EZ
2363* Changes in documentation.
2364
2365All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2366Documentation License.
2367
2368Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2369manual.
2370
2371TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2372
2373Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2374manual.
2375
2376The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2377documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2378hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2379
5d6640b1
AC
2380* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2381
2382The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2383``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2384contents of this file.
2385
1a1d8446
AC
2386* gdba.el deleted
2387
2388GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2389
9debab2f 2390*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2391
c63ce875
EZ
2392* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2393
2394Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2395programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2396displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2397greater level of detail.
2398
2399* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2400
2401It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2402bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2403on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2404written.
2405
2406* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2407
2408The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2409necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2410machines ``out of the box''.
2411
2412The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2413possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2414signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2415would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2416interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2417
2418It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2419standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2420even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2421and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2422terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2423
2424The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2425enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2426also works.
2427
2428DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2429GDB.
2430
2431It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2432directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2433times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2434breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2435
ed9a39eb
JM
2436* New native configurations
2437
2438ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2439PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2440
7a292a7a
SS
2441* New targets
2442
96baa820 2443Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2444x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2445PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2446TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2447
085dd6e6
JM
2448* OBSOLETE configurations
2449
2450Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2451Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2452Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2453ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2454Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2455
9debab2f
AC
2456Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2457but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2458these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2459be permanently REMOVED.
2460
5330533d
SS
2461* Gould support removed
2462
2463Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2464
bc9e5bbf
AC
2465* New features for SVR4
2466
2467On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2468without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2469load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2470
2471* Many C++ enhancements
2472
2473C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2474in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2475
adf40b2e
JM
2476* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2477
2478A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2479sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2480with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2481``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2482
2483 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2484 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2485
43e526b9
JM
2486* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2487
2488A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2489expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2490instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2491
2492The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2493added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2494
96baa820
JM
2495* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2496
2497The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2498``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2499include ``set remote P-packet''.
2500
11cf8741
JM
2501* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2502
2503The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2504accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2505``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2506
7876dd43
DB
2507* ``apropos'' command added.
2508
2509The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2510documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2511try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2512
bc9e5bbf
AC
2513* New MI interface
2514
2515A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2516interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2517process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2518"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2519enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2520
2521 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2522
c906108c
SS
2523*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2524
2525* New native configurations
2526
2527HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2528HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2529M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2530
2531* New targets
2532
2533Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2534Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2535Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2536
2537* OBSOLETE configurations
2538
2539Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2540
2541Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2542but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2543these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2544be permanently REMOVED.
2545
2546* ANSI/ISO C
2547
2548As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2549buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2550containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2551use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2552available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2553configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2554information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2555already.
2556
2557* Readline 2.2
2558
2559GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2560
2561* set extension-language
2562
2563You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2564languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2565you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2566 set extension-language .c c++
2567The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2568and their associated languages.
2569
2570* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2571
2572When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2573you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2574PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2575
2576 set processor NAME
2577
2578sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2579following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2580
2581 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2582 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2583 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2584 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2585 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2586 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2587 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2588 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2589 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2590 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2591 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2592
2593At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2594special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2595registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2596only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2597
2598* HP-UX support
2599
2600Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2601more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2602library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2603support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2604for xdb and dbx commands.
2605
2606* Catchpoints
2607
2608HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2609generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2610to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2611
2612This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2613argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2614output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2615
2616* Debugging across forks
2617
2618On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2619in the inferior.
2620
2621* TUI
2622
2623HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2624it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2625configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2626
2627* GDB remote protocol additions
2628
2629A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2630Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2631fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2632allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2633
2634For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2635full 64-bit address. The command
2636
2637 set remoteaddresssize 32
2638
2639can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2640the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2641will be discarded.
2642
2643In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2644command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2645
2646 maint packet heythere
2647
2648sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2649disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2650time.
2651
2652The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2653target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2654downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2655
2656* Tracing can collect general expressions
2657
2658You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2659further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2660doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2661
2662* mask-address variable for Mips
2663
2664For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2665a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2666of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2667
2668* Higher serial baud rates
2669
2670GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2671230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2672to achieve all of these rates.)
2673
2674* i960 simulator
2675
2676The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2677builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2678
2679
2680*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2681
2682* New native configurations
2683
2684Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2685Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2686Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2687PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2688PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2689Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2690Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2691
2692* New targets
2693
2694Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2695Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2696Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2697Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2698MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2699MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2700MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2701Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2702Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2703Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2704NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2705
2706* New debugging protocols
2707
2708ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2709M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2710DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2711PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2712PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2713Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2714
2715* DWARF 2
2716
2717All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2718format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2719information.
2720
2721* Java frontend
2722
2723GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2724only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2725
2726* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2727
2728For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2729loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2730locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2731
2732* Live range splitting
2733
2734GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2735range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2736more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2737
2738* Hurd support
2739
2740GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2741updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2742
2743* ARM Thumb support
2744
2745GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2746instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2747instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2748accordingly.
2749
2750* MIPS16 support
2751
2752GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2753instruction set.
2754
2755* Overlay support
2756
2757GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2758linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2759will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2760control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2761additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2762in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2763
2764* info symbol
2765
2766The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2767the symbol at the specified address.
2768
2769* Trace support
2770
2771The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2772asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2773extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2774includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2775file tracepoint.c for more details.
2776
2777* MIPS simulator
2778
2779Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2780by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2781of most MIPS variants.
2782
2783* Sparc simulator
2784
2785Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2786by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2787Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2788
2789* set architecture
2790
2791For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2792basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2793architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2794the possible architectures.
2795
2796*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2797
2798* New native configurations
2799
2800Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2801M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2802PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2803PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2804PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2805RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2806
2807* New targets
2808
2809ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2810I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2811MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2812MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2813PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2814Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2815Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2816
2817* PowerPC simulator
2818
2819The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2820contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2821PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2822basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2823performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2824
2825* Solaris 2.5
2826
2827GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2828
2829* Windows 95/NT native
2830
2831GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2832To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2833which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2834Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2835ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2836
2837* dont-repeat command
2838
2839If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2840command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2841useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2842extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2843
2844* Send break instead of ^C
2845
2846The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2847rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2848GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2849
2850* Remote protocol timeout
2851
2852The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2853that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2854to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2855
2856* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2857
2858By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2859loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2860stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2861when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2862in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2863
2864Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2865/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2866automatically on hpux10.
2867
2868* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2869
2870Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2871
2872* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2873
2874When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2875may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2876the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2877every character. The default value is 1050.
2878
2879* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2880
2881If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2882a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2883replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2884details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2885remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2886to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2887
2888* Speedups for remote debugging
2889
2890GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2891the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2892and more efficient S-record downloading.
2893
2894* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2895
2896GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2897Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2898
2899*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2900
2901* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2902
2903The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2904can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2905
2906* Remote targets use caching
2907
2908Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2909remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2910it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2911debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2912off' turns the the data cache off.
2913
2914* Remote targets may have threads
2915
2916The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2917in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2918gdb/remote.c for details.
2919
2920* NetROM support
2921
2922If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2923support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2924acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2925write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2926support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2927another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2928sequence is something like
2929
2930 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2931 load <prog>
2932 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2933
2934* Macintosh host
2935
2936GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2937may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2938it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2939available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2940device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2941directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2942scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2943mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2944
2945* Autoconf
2946
2947GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2948but does simplify configuration and building.
2949
2950* hpux10
2951
2952GDB now supports hpux10.
2953
2954*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2955
2956* New native configurations
2957
2958x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2959x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2960NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2961Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2962
2963* New targets
2964
2965A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2966HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2967CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2968PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2969WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2970
2971* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2972
2973GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2974possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2975filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2976the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2977if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2978
2979* Arguments to user-defined commands
2980
2981User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2982Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2983trivial example:
2984define adder
2985 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2986
2987To execute the command use:
2988adder 1 2 3
2989
2990Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2991Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2992use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2993
2994* New `if' and `while' commands
2995
2996This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2997commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2998expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2999execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3000terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3001`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3002if the expression is zero.
3003
3004* Fortran source language mode
3005
3006GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3007Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3008variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3009with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3010Fortran compilers.
3011
3012* Better HPUX support
3013
3014Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3015running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3016processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3017for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3018that behavior do the following before running the program:
3019
3020 adb -w a.out
3021 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3022 control-d
3023
3024This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3025To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3026
3027 adb -w a.out
3028 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3029 control-d
3030
3031You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3032the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3033external linkage.
3034
3035GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3036HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3037
3038* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3039
3040You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3041commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3042current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3043"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3044associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3045configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3046
3047* New DOS host serial code
3048
3049This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3050no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3051a PC's serial port.
3052
3053*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3054
3055* New "complete" command
3056
3057This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3058were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3059
3060* Trailing space optional in prompt
3061
3062"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3063allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3064
3065* Breakpoint hit counts
3066
3067"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3068has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3069can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3070to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3071less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3072that breakpoint.
3073
3074* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3075
3076"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3077an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3078arrays actually contain only short strings.
3079
3080* Shared library breakpoints
3081
3082In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3083breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3084
3085* Hardware watchpoints
3086
3087There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3088targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3089
55241689 3090Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3091
3092* Annotations
3093
3094Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3095and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3096
3097* Improved Irix 5 support
3098
3099GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3100
3101* Improved HPPA support
3102
3103GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3104
3105* New native configurations
3106
3107Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3108HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3109Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3110RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3111
3112* New targets
3113
3114OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3115MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3116Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3117
3118* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3119
3120There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3121This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3122
3123* Fixes
3124
3125As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3126and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3127
3128*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3129
3130* Irix 5 is now supported
3131
3132* HPPA support
3133
3134GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3135to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3136GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3137of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3138can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3139
3140
3141*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3142
3143* User visible changes:
3144
3145* Remote Debugging
3146
3147The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3148target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3149debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3150integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3151debugging info for the mips target).
3152
3153* DEC Alpha native support
3154
3155GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3156debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3157work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3158Alpha-specific notes.
3159
3160* Preliminary thread implementation
3161
3162GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3163
3164* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3165
3166This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3167to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3168for details).
3169
3170* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3171
3172This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3173mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3174call methods, ...etc.
3175
3176*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3177
3178 * User visible changes:
3179
3180Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3181supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3182other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3183somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3184
3185Filename completion now works.
3186
3187When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3188arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3189addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3190
3191All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3192vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3193should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3194your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3195to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3196
3197 * DEC alpha support
3198
3199This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3200cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3201
3202
3203*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3204
3205 * Testsuite
3206
3207This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3208The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3209via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3210
3211 * C++ demangling
3212
3213'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3214emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3215Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3216disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3217use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3218
3219 * Simulators
3220
3221GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3222So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3223Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3224
3225 * New targets supported
3226
3227H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3228H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3229SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3230Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3231IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3232
3233Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3234version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3235GO32 memory extender.
3236
3237 * New remote protocols
3238
3239MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3240
3241 * New source languages supported
3242
3243This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3244used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3245into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3246
3247
3248*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3249
3250 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3251
3252GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3253version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3254University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3255compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3256format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3257(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3258
3259Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3260
3261 * Faster and better demangling
3262
3263We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3264demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3265character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3266only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3267This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3268increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3269symbol lookups.
3270
3271`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3272from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3273compiler does not actually implement.
3274
3275 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3276
3277In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3278inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3279recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3280very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3281The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3282circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3283fix.
3284
3285The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3286release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3287
3288 * Improved configure script
3289
3290The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3291you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3292host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3293done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3294
3295We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3296version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3297`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3298The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3299only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3300We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3301
3302 * Documentation improvements
3303
3304There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3305produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3306before submitting changes.
3307
3308The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3309M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3310`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3311you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3312a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3313
3314*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3315We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3316been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3317or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3318`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3319around this problem.
3320
3321 * New features
3322
3323GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3324the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3325`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3326the target program.
3327
3328The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3329how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3330
3331 * New native hosts supported
3332
3333HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3334386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3335
3336 * New targets supported
3337
3338AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3339
3340 * New file formats supported
3341
3342BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3343HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3344
3345 * Major bug fixes
3346
3347Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3348
3349We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3350printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3351
3352We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3353for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3354release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3355
3356You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3357will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3358
3359We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3360for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3361especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3362libraries.
3363
3364The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3365information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3366command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3367any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3368when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3369
3370 * Internal improvements
3371
3372GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3373debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3374
3375GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3376Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3377symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3378contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3379shared code that handles any of them.
3380
3381 * New command line options
3382
3383We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3384
3385 * Mmalloc licensing
3386
3387The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3388General Public License.
3389
3390*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3391
3392 * Host/native/target split
3393
3394GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3395hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3396target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3397local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3398ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3399
3400The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3401GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3402is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3403code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3404any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3405built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3406handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3407
3408GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3409It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3410plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3411
3412 * New hosts supported
3413
3414HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3415386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3416386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3417
3418 * New targets supported
3419
3420Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
342168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3422
3423 * New native hosts supported
3424
3425386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3426 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3427386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3428
3429 * New file formats supported
3430
3431BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3432supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3433format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3434
3435 * New commands
3436
3437`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3438`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3439These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3440
3441`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3442
3443You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3444scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3445prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3446executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3447
3448 * C++ improvements
3449
3450We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3451info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3452symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3453
3454Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3455
3456 * Major bug fixes
3457
3458The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3459fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3460by the compiler.
3461
3462We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3463support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3464
3465John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3466slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3467that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3468purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3469the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3470mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3471
3472Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3473about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3474completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3475we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3476
3477 * AMD 29k support
3478
3479A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3480specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3481calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3482usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3483in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3484
3485We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3486Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3487of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3488resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3489
3490 * Remote interfaces
3491
3492We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3493with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3494message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3495This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3496needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3497breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3498each instruction being stepped through.
3499
3500The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3501registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3502
3503There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3504find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3505Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3506processor with a serial port.
3507
3508 * Configuration
3509
3510Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3511`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3512supported, and what files each one uses.
3513
3514 * Library changes
3515
3516There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3517disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3518Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3519disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3520
3521The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3522Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3523can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3524grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3525
3526 * Documentation
3527
3528The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3529reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3530as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3531encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3532system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3533bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3534
3535And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3536
3537
3538*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3539
3540 * Better support for C++ function names
3541
3542GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3543names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3544(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3545single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3546Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3547
3548GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3549the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3550You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3551lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3552for the list of formats.
3553
3554 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3555
3556Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3557C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3558directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3559can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3560usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3561about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3562this problem.)
3563
3564 * New 'maintenance' command
3565
3566All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3567the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3568can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3569
3570 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3571 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3572 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3573 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3574 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3575 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3576
3577The following commands are new:
3578
3579 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3580 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3581 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3582
3583 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3584
3585We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3586(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3587be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3588read after argv processing.
3589
3590 * New hosts supported
3591
3592Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3593
55241689 3594GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3595
3596We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3597is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3598for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3599masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3600fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3601It costs extra.
3602
3603 * New targets supported
3604
3605Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3606
3607 * More smarts about finding #include files
3608
3609GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3610all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3611greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3612especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3613the one that contains your sources.
3614
3615We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3616breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3617try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3618
3619 * Interesting infernals change
3620
3621GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3622section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3623target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3624stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3625
3626 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3627
3628There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3629 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3630 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3631
3632See the ChangeLog for details.
3633
3634*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3635
3636 * New machines supported (host and target)
3637
3638IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3639
3640SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3641
3642 * New malloc package
3643
3644GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3645Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3646capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3647This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3648pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3649more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3650
3651 * info proc
3652
3653The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3654'help info proc' for details.
3655
3656 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3657
3658The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3659Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3660possible.
3661
3662 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3663
3664Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3665support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3666conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3667environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3668that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3669in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3670
3671 * Cross byte order fixes
3672
3673Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3674targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3675
3676 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3677
3678If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3679system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3680`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3681program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3682called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3683Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3684and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3685the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3686option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3687starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3688
3689You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3690the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3691information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3692slower, but makes future operations faster.
3693
3694The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3695build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3696A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3697use is:
3698
3699 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3700
3701The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3702It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3703shared across multiple host platforms.
3704
3705 * longjmp() handling
3706
3707GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3708siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3709all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3710platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3711
3712 * Solaris 2.0
3713
3714Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3715this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3716reading symbols.
3717
3718 * Bug fixes
3719
3720As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3721People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3722crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3723
3724*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3725
3726 * New machines supported (host and target)
3727
3728SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3729 (except core files)
3730BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3731Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3732
3733 * New machines supported (target)
3734
3735AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3736
3737 * C++ support
3738
3739GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3740The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3741per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3742
3743GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3744`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3745extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3746good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3747will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3748released.
3749
3750 * New features for SVR4
3751
3752GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3753shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3754only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3755
3756The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3757on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3758it prints the address mappings of the process.
3759
3760If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3761bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3762
3763 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3764
3765Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3766now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3767skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3768make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3769same code linked statically.
3770
3771 * New Getopt
3772
3773GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3774version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3775continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3776Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3777added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3778future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3779
3780 * Bugs fixed
3781
3782The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3783Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3784See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3785
3786
3787*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3788
3789 * New machines supported (host and target)
3790
3791Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3792NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3793Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3794
3795 * Almost SCO Unix support
3796
3797We had hoped to support:
3798SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3799(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3800that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3801about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3802
3803 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3804
3805GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3806debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3807is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3808send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3809reqired (if any).
3810
3811 * New Readline
3812
3813GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3814is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3815required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3816
3817 * Bugs fixed
3818
3819The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3820Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3821See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3822
3823 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3824
3825GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3826supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3827symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3828
3829Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3830mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3831debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3832mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3833version 2.
3834
3835Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3836really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3837line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3838variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3839situation somewhat.
3840
3841When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3842However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3843methods.
3844
3845We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3846DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3847encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3848
3849
3850*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3851
3852 * Improved configuration
3853
3854Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3855Porting BFD is simpler.
3856
3857 * Stepping improved
3858
3859The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3860of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3861in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3862function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3863
3864 * Bug fixing
3865
3866Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3867
3868 * New host supported (not target)
3869
3870Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3871
3872
3873*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3874
3875 * Multiple source language support
3876
3877GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3878It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3879and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3880language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3881You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3882`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3883
3884 * GDB and Modula-2
3885
3886GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3887currently under development at the State University of New York at
3888Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3889continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3890
3891Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3892debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3893symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3894
3895There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3896in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3897
3898 * set write on/off
3899
3900GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3901a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3902the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3903by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3904effect immediately.
3905
3906 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3907
3908When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3909shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3910The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3911examining core files.
3912
3913 * set listsize
3914
3915You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3916The default is 10.
3917
3918 * New machines supported (host and target)
3919
3920SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3921Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3922Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3923
3924 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3925
3926IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3927
3928 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3929
3930AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3931AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3932Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3933
3934 * New remote interfaces
3935
3936AMD 29000 Adapt
3937AMD 29000 Minimon
3938
3939
3940*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3941
3942 * New Facilities
3943
3944Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3945
3946Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3947target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3948is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3949remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3950remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3951also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3952using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3953stub on the target system.
3954
3955New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3956
3957GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3958library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3959object file types such as a.out and coff.
3960
3961There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3962refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3963
3964
3965 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3966
3967All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3968by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3969
3970For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3971``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3972Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3973
3974What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3975print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3976will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3977all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3978
3979confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3980 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3981 it is already running. Default is ON.
3982
3983editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3984 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3985 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3986 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3987 Default is ON.
3988
3989history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3990 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3991 or the value of the environment variable
3992 GDBHISTFILE.
3993
3994history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3995 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3996 HISTSIZE.
3997
3998history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3999 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4000 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4001
4002history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4003 history expansion will be performed on
4004 command line input. The default is OFF.
4005
4006radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4007 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4008 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4009
4010height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4011 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4012 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4013 variable TERM.
4014
4015width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4016 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4017 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4018 variable TERM.
4019
4020Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4021``set width'' instead.
4022
4023print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4024 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4025 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4026 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4027
4028print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4029 is OFF.
4030
4031print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4032 "raw" form if off.
4033
4034print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4035 like instructions.
4036
4037print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4038
4039
4040 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4041
4042The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4043new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4044are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4045window.
4046
4047
4048 * Support for Shared Libraries
4049
4050GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4051Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4052before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4053happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4054At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4055from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4056shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4057It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4058
4059sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4060 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4061 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4062
4063info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4064
4065
4066 * Watchpoints
4067
4068A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4069expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4070tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4071quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4072problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4073more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4074
4075watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4076
4077info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4078
4079delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4080disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4081enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4082
4083
4084 * C++ multiple inheritance
4085
4086When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4087for C++ programs.
4088
4089 * C++ exception handling
4090
4091Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4092ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4093the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4094handler's context).
4095
4096catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4097 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4098 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4099
4100info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4101 current stack frame.
4102
4103
4104 * Minor command changes
4105
4106The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4107command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4108is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4109
4110The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4111at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4112frames without printing.
4113
4114 * New directory command
4115
4116'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4117The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4118about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4119with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4120find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4121
4122 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4123
4124For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4125for more details.
4126
4127GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4128two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4129Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4130where the program that you are debugging will run.