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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
75feb17d
DJ
4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
ccd213ac
DJ
6* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
7which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
8
1fddbabb
PA
9* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
10 list of section offsets.
11
ccd213ac
DJ
12* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
13
14 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
15 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
16
75feb17d
DJ
17* New commands
18
19set debug timetstamp
20show debug timestamp
21 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
22
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DJ
23set exec-wrapper
24show exec-wrapper
25unset exec-wrapper
26 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 27
aad4b048
JB
28set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
29show multiple-symbols
30 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
31 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
32 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
33
75feb17d 34*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 35
af5ca30d
NH
36* New native configurations
37
38NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 39Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
40
41* New targets
42
43NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 44Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 45
7a404eba
PA
46* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
47
48 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
49 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
50 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
51 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
52
430ebac9
PA
53* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
54(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
55
fe6fbf8b 56* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 57is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
58
59* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
60including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
61and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 62
10665d76
JB
63* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
64accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
65more than one contiguous range of addresses.
66
7cc46491
DJ
67* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
68
d71340b8
DJ
69* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
70registers on PowerPC targets.
71
523c4513
DJ
72* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
73targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
74
a6b151f1
DJ
75* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
76commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
77
2d717e4f
DJ
78* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
79extended-remote mode.
80
24a836bd
JB
81* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
82 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
83 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
84 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
85
d0c678e6
UW
86* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
87building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
88target architectures.
89
d64a946d
TJB
90* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
91Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
92now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
93stored in two consecutive float registers.
94
ee163bf5
VP
95* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
96breakpoints now.
97
b93b6ca7
JB
98* Improved support for debugging Ada
99 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
100 include:
101 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
102 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
103 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
104 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
105 of an assignment
106 - Improved command completion in Ada
107 - Several bug fixes
108
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DJ
109* New commands
110
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JB
111set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
112show print frame-arguments
113 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
114 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
115
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DJ
116remote put
117remote get
118remote delete
119 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
120
121* New MI commands
122
123-target-file-put
124-target-file-get
125-target-file-delete
126 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
127
128* New remote packets
129
130vFile:open:
131vFile:close:
132vFile:pread:
133vFile:pwrite:
134vFile:unlink:
135 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 136
e85a822c
DJ
137* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
138process.
139
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DJ
140vAttach
141 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
142 mode.
143
144vRun
145 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
146
8d5f9c6f 147*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 148
19d378fc
MS
149* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
150bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
151Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
152
3a40aaa0
UW
153* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
154symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
155-Bsymbolic linker option.
156
a6ec25f2
BW
157* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
158recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
159is not supported.
160
6dd09645
JB
161* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
162frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
163
c9bb8148
DJ
164* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
16532-bit or 64-bit register values.
166
0d5de010
DJ
167* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
168
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DJ
169* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
170target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
171a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
172
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DJ
173* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
174automatically displayed as character or string data.
175
176* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
177arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
178as strings.
e1f48ead 179
123dc839
DJ
180* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
181for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 182only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 183
05a4558a
DJ
184* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
185iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 186
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PA
187* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
188ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
189has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
190
b18be20d
DJ
191* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
192
0ca420ce
UW
193* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
194
31d99776
DJ
195* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
196layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
197segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
198
a4642986
MR
199* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
200immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
201
cfa9d6d9
DJ
202* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
203"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
204packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
205where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
206Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
207
208* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
209(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
210
211* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
212according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 213
c9bb8148
DJ
214* New commands
215
23776285
MR
216set remoteflow
217show remoteflow
218 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
219 when debugging using remote targets.
220
c9bb8148
DJ
221set mem inaccessible-by-default
222show mem inaccessible-by-default
223 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
224 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
225 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
226 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
227 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
228
229set breakpoint auto-hw
230show breakpoint auto-hw
231 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
232 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
233 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
234 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
235 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
236 including "next" and "finish".
237
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JB
238catch exception
239catch exception unhandled
240 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
241
242catch assert
243 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
244
f822c95b
DJ
245set sysroot
246show sysroot
247 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
248 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
249 an alias to "set sysroot".
250
83cc5c53
UW
251info spu
252 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
253 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
254 architecture.
255
bd372731
MK
256* New native configurations
257
258OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
259
23181151
DJ
260set tdesc filename
261unset tdesc filename
262show tdesc filename
263 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
264 not query the target for its built-in description.
265
c9bb8148
DJ
266* New targets
267
54fe9172 268OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 269MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 270Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 271
6dd09645
JB
272* New remote packets
273
274QPassSignals:
275 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
276 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
277
23181151
DJ
278qXfer:features:read:
279 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
280 features.
6dd09645 281
83cc5c53
UW
282qXfer:spu:read:
283qXfer:spu:write:
284 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
285 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
286
cfa9d6d9
DJ
287qXfer:libraries:read:
288 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
289 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
290 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
291 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
292
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DJ
293* Removed targets
294
295Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
296
d08950c4
UW
297alpha*-*-osf1*
298alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 299d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
300hppa*-*-hiux*
301i[34567]86-ncr-*
302i[34567]86-*-dgux*
303i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
304i[34567]86-*-netware*
305i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
306i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
307i[34567]86-*-sco*
308i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
309i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
310i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
311i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
312i[34567]86-*-unixware*
313i[34567]86-*-sysv*
314i[34567]86-*-isc*
315m68*-cisco*-*
316m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 317mips*-*-pe
483367ee 318rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 319sh*-*-pe
483367ee 320
7ce59000
DJ
321* Other removed features
322
323target abug
324target cpu32bug
325target est
326target rom68k
327
328 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
329
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DJ
330target hms
331target e7000
332target sh3
333target sh3e
334
335 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
336 H8/300.
337
338target ocd
339
340 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
341 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
342 interfaces.
343
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DJ
344DWARF 1 support
345
346 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
347 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
348
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DJ
349Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
350
351 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
352 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
353 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
354 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
355
ea35711c
DJ
356MIPS ".pdr" sections
357
358 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
359 in debugging information.
360
361Scheme support
362
363 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
364 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
365
1a69e1e4
DJ
366set mips stack-arg-size
367set mips saved-gpreg-size
368
369 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
370
6dd09645 371*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 372
ca3bf3bd
DJ
373* New targets
374
375Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 376Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 377
6aec2e11
DJ
378* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
379(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
380running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
381
382* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
383Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
384supported.
385
17218d91
DJ
386* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
387broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
388
9ebce043
DJ
389* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
390stub provides the required support.
391
7d3d3ece
DJ
392* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
393longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
394
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JB
395* New commands
396
397set substitute-path
398unset substitute-path
399show substitute-path
400 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
401 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
402 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
403 between compilation and debugging.
404
9fa66fd7
AS
405set trace-commands
406show trace-commands
407 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
408 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
409 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
410
1f5befc1
DJ
411* REMOVED features
412
413The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
414
2ec3381a
DJ
415Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
416an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
417
3d00d119
DJ
418The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
419
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DJ
420* New remote packets
421
422qSupported:
423 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
424 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
425 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
426 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
427 target.
428
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DJ
429qXfer:auxv:read:
430 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
431 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
432
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DJ
433qXfer:memory-map:read:
434 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
435 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
436
437vFlashErase:
438vFlashWrite:
439vFlashDone:
440 Erase and program a flash memory device.
441
0876f84a
DJ
442* Removed remote packets
443
444qPart:auxv:read:
445 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
446 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
447
e374b601 448*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 449
96309189
MS
450* New targets
451
452Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
453
454Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
455
53e5f3cf
AS
456* New commands
457
458init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
459 only if it doesn't already have a value.
460
ac264b3b
MS
461The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
462
463checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
464
465restart <n> Return the program state to a
466 previously saved state.
467
468info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
469
470delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
471
472set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
473 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
474
475info forks List forks of the user program that
476 are available to be debugged.
477
478fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
479 forks of the user program that are
480 available to be debugged.
481
482delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
483 that are available to be debugged (and
484 kill the forked process).
485
486detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
487 that are available to be debugged (and
488 allow the process to continue).
489
3950dc3f
NS
490* New architecture
491
492Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
493
0ea3f30e
DJ
494* Improved Windows host support
495
496GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
497native console support, and remote communications using either
498network sockets or serial ports.
499
f79daebb
GM
500* Improved Modula-2 language support
501
502GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
503basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
504pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
505printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
506written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
507GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
508
acab6ab2
MM
509* REMOVED features
510
511The ARM rdi-share module.
512
f4267320
DJ
513The Netware NLM debug server.
514
53e5f3cf 515*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 516
e0ecbda1
MK
517* New native configurations
518
02a677ac 519OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
520OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
521
d64a6579
KB
522* New targets
523
524Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
525
b33a6190
AS
526* New command line options
527
528--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
529--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
530 the child (debugged) program exited with.
531--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
532 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
533 specified multiple times and in conjunction
534 with the --command (-x) option.
535
11dced61
AC
536* Deprecated commands removed
537
538The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
539removed:
540
541 Command Replacement
542 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
543 othernames set arm disassembler
544 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
545 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
546 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
547 regs info registers
548
6fe85783
MK
549* New BSD user-level threads support
550
551It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
552library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
553configurations are:
554
555FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
556FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
557OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
558
559Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
560are not yet supported.
561
5260ca71
MS
562* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
563(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
564
e84ecc99
AC
565* REMOVED configurations and files
566
567VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 568Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 569National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 570
31e35378
JB
571* New "set print array-indexes" command
572
573After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
574when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
575behavior.
576
e85e5c83
MK
577* VAX floating point support
578
579GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
580
d91e9901
AS
581* User-defined command support
582
583In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
584to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
585section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
586
f2cb65ca
MC
587*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
588
f47b1503
AS
589* New command line option
590
591GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
592debugging.
593
f2cb65ca
MC
594* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
595
596GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
597information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
598by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
599proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
600to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 601
d08c0230
AC
602* Internationalization
603
604When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
605internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
606continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
607
117ea3cf
PH
608* Ada
609
610Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
611implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
612into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
613
d08c0230
AC
614* New native configurations
615
616GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
617
618* Remote 'p' packet
619
620GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
621packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
622
623* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
624
625GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
626The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
627features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
628i386 application).
629
630GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
631compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
632continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
633configurations:
634
635hppa-*-hpux
636ia64-*-aix
637mips-*-irix*
638*-*-lynx
639mips-*-linux-gnu
640sds protocol
641xdr protocol
642powerpc bdm protocol
643
644Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
645made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
646
647* OBSOLETE configurations and files
648
649Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
650been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
651configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
652permanently REMOVED.
653
654h8300-*-*
655mcore-*-*
656mn10300-*-*
657ns32k-*-*
658sh64-*-*
659v850-*-*
660
ebb7c577
AC
661*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
662
663* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
664
665When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
666heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
667been fixed.
668
669* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
670
671When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
672fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
673IRIX long double values).
674
675* VAX and "next"
676
677A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
678command. This problem has been fixed.
679
860660cb 680*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 681
0dea2468
AC
682* Fix for ``many threads''
683
684On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
685rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
686error message:
687
688 ptrace: No such process.
689 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
690
691This problem has been fixed.
692
2c07db7a
AC
693* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
694
695Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
696GDB to dump core).
697
c23968a2
JB
698* New ``start'' command.
699
700This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
701
71009278
MK
702* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
703
704Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
705live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
706platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
707
708FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
709FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
710NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
711NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
712NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
713OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
714OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
715OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
716OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
717
3c0b7db2
AC
718* Signal trampoline code overhauled
719
720Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
721These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
722of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
723call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
724signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
725
73cc75f3
AC
726Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
727features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
728include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 729
7243600a
BF
730* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
731
6f606e1c
MK
732* New native configurations
733
97dc871c 734GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 735OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
736OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
737OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 738OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 739NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 740OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 741
a1b461bf
AC
742* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
743
744GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
745The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
746including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
747migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
748compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
749work, was also included.
750
751GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
752module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
753
754h8300-*-*
755mcore-*-*
756mn10300-*-*
757ns32k-*-*
758sh64-*-*
759v850-*-*
760xstormy16-*-*
761
762Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
763made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
764
3c7012f5
AC
765* REMOVED configurations and files
766
767Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
768Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
769Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
770Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
771Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
772AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
773Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
774decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
775riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
776sonymips mips-sony-*
777sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
778
e5fe55f7
AC
779*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
780
781* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
782
783The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
784GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
785command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
786program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
787with GDB".
788
789* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
790
791Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
792libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
793cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
794GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
795shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
796the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
797are created.
798
799Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
800
801* Fixed ISO-C build problems
802
803The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
804non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
805compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
806
807* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
808
809Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
810wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
811
812* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
813
814The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
815permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
816systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
817
818* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
819
820Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
821has been updated to use constant array sizes.
822
823* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
824
825GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
826its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
827panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
828
829* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
830
831When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
832by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
833not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
834
faae5abe 835*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 836
9175c9a3
MC
837* Removed --with-mmalloc
838
839Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
840conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
841
3cc87ec0
MK
842* Changes in AMD64 configurations
843
844The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
845the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
846and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
847you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
848
f0424ef6
MK
849* Revised SPARC target
850
851The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
852FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
853support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
854from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
855(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 856
59659be2
ILT
857* New C++ demangler
858
859GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
860names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
861with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
862programs.
863
9e08b29b
DJ
864* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
865
866GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
867arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
868encountered these.
869
8dfe8985
DC
870* C++ nested types and namespaces
871
872GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
873improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
874is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
875Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
876namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
877"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
878frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
879if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
880GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
881
cced5e27
MK
882* New native configurations
883
884NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 885OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 886OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
887OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
888OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 889
b4b4b794
KI
890* New debugging protocols
891
892M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
893
7989c619
AC
894* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
895
896The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
897and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
898tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
899
5994185b
AC
900* OBSOLETE configurations and files
901
902Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
903been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
904configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
905permanently REMOVED.
906
907Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
908Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
909Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
910Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
911Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
912AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
913Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
914decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
915riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
916sonymips mips-sony-*
917sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 918
0ddabb4c
AC
919* REMOVED configurations and files
920
921SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
922SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
923Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
924Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
925H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
926HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
927HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
928HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
929PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 930386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
931Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
932 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
933 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
934SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
935SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
936Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
937Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 938
c7f1390e
DJ
939*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
940
1fe43d45
AC
941* Objective-C
942
943Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
944integrated into GDB.
945
e6beb428
AC
946* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
947
948DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
949information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
950By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
951backtraces.
952
953The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
954have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
955DWARF 2 CFI support.
956
957* Hosted file I/O.
958
959GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
960file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
961remote protocol documentation for details.
962
963* All targets using the new architecture framework.
964
965All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
966architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
967to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
968ppc32 on ppc64).
969
970* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
971
972GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
973per-thread variables.
974
975* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
976
977GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
978GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
979
980* Separate debug info.
981
982GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
983automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
984of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
985system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
986and optional debug files.
987
988* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
989
990DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
991describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
992debugger.
993
994GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
995for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
996
997* Java
998
999A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1000Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1001considered "useable".
1002
85f8f974
DJ
1003* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1004
1005The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1006commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1007kernel.
1008
0fac0b41
DJ
1009* GDB supports logging output to a file
1010
1011There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1012used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1013
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1014* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1015
1016The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1017disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1018command.
1019
e286caf2 1020* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1021
1022The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1023registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1024
d28f9cdf
DJ
1025* Profiling support
1026
1027A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1028be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1029session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1030"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1031data, for more informative profiling results.
1032
da0f9dcd
AC
1033* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1034
1035The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1036option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1037"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1038
1039Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1040removed.
1041
fb9b6b35
JJ
1042Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1043Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1044Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1045 in a subsequent -var-update.
1046
954a4db8
MK
1047* New native configurations.
1048
1049FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1050
6760f9e6
JB
1051* Multi-arched targets.
1052
b4263afa 1053HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1054Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1055
1b831c93
AC
1056* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1057
1058Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1059been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1060configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1061permanently REMOVED.
1062
8b0e5691 1063Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1064Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1065H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1066HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1067HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1068HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1069PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1070Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1071 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1072 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1073Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1074Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1075
5835abe7
NC
1076* REMOVED configurations and files
1077
1078V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1079Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1080IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1081i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1082i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1083i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1084HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1085 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1086 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1087Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1088Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1089Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1090OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1091I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1092
a094c6fb
AC
1093* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1094
1095The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1096the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1097context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1098address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1099The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1100
299ffc64 1101*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1102
46248966
AC
1103* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1104
1105When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1106`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1107in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1108library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1109shared libs like mad''.
1110
b9d14705 1111* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1112
b9d14705
DJ
1113Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1114the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1115arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1116powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1117
e0e9281e
JB
1118* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1119
1120GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1121and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1122they expand.
1123
dd73b9bb
AC
1124The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1125invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1126
1127The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1128macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1129
e0e9281e
JB
1130Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1131information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1132your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1133information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1134
2250ee0c
CV
1135* Multi-arched targets.
1136
6e3ba3b8
JT
1137DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1138DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1139NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1140National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1141Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1142Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1143
cd9bfe15 1144* New targets.
e33ce519 1145
456f8b9d
DB
1146Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1147
e33ce519 1148
da8ca43d
JT
1149* New native configurations
1150
1151Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1152SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1153MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1154UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1155
cd9bfe15
AC
1156* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1157
1158Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1159been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1160configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1161permanently REMOVED.
1162
92eb23c5 1163Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1164OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1165IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1166Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1167Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1168Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1169i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1170i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1171i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1172HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1173 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1174 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1175I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1176
db034ac5
AC
1177* OBSOLETE languages
1178
1179CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1180
cd9bfe15
AC
1181* REMOVED configurations and files
1182
1183AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1184A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1185AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1186AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1187AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1188
1189testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1190
20f01a46
DH
1191* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1192
1193This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1194commands. The default is 1024.
1195
a5941fbf
MK
1196* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1197
1198Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1199
89743e04
MS
1200* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1201
1202These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1203to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1204from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1205
9fb14e79
JB
1206* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1207
1208The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1209including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1210of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1211
2037aebb
AC
1212*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1213
1214* New targets.
1215
1216Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1217
1218* Bug fixes
1219
1220gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1221mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1222Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1223
1224gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1225dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1226Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1227
1228Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1229Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1230By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1231
1232i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1233avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1234By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1235
37057839 1236*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1237
1a703748
MS
1238* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1239
1240This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1241really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1242In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1243target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1244This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1245(notably embedded) targets.
1246
cefd4ef5
MS
1247* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1248
55241689
AC
1249This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1250process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1251GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1252hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1253
352ed7b4
MS
1254* New command line option
1255
1256GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1257
1258* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1259
1260There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1261command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1262a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1263be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1264open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1265issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1266a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1267it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1268GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1269is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1270
fe419ffc
RE
1271* Changes in ARM configurations.
1272
1273Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1274configuration is fully multi-arch.
1275
eb7cedd9
MK
1276* New native configurations
1277
fe419ffc 1278ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1279x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1280AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1281Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1282
c9f63e6b
CV
1283* New targets
1284
1285Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1286
9b4ff276
AC
1287* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1288
1289Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1290been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1291configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1292permanently REMOVED.
1293
1294AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1295A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1296AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1297AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1298AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1299
b4ceaee6 1300testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1301
e2caac18
AC
1302* REMOVED configurations and files
1303
1304TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1305WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1306PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1307PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1308PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1309Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1310Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1311 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1312SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1313Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1314Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1315ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1316Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1317
c2a727fa
TT
1318* Changes to command line processing
1319
1320The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1321for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1322
467d8519
TT
1323* Changes to key bindings
1324
1325There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1326
7072a954
AC
1327*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1328
1329Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1330
1331Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1332corrupted.
1333
1334Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1335
1336Numerous documentation fixes.
1337
1338Numerous testsuite fixes.
1339
34f47bc4 1340*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1341
1342* New native configurations
1343
1344Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1345x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1346MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1347MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1348ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1349s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1350
bf64bfd6
AC
1351* New targets
1352
def90278 1353Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1354CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1355UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1356
17e78a56 1357* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1358
1359x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1360Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1361Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1362 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1363TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1364WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1365Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1366PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1367PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1368PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1369SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1370Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1371ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1372Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1373
17e78a56
AC
1374stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1375kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1376
7fcca85b
AC
1377Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1378been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1379configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1380permanently REMOVED.
1381
a196c81c 1382* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1383
1384Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1385Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1386Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1387ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1388Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1389ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1390
6d6b80e5 1391* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1392
6d6b80e5 1393GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1394sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1395present.
1396
bf64bfd6
AC
1397* Other news:
1398
e23194cb
EZ
1399* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1400
1401* The MI enabled by default.
1402
1403The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1404revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1405engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1406using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1407which is now deprecated.
1408
1409* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1410
1411GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1412main features are supported:
1413
1414 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1415
1416 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1417 extension;
1418
1419 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1420
1421 - a Pascal expression parser.
1422
1423However, some important features are not yet supported.
1424
1425 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1426
1427 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1428
1429 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1430 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1431
1432 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1433
1434 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1435
1436* Changes in completion.
1437
1438Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1439to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1440users expect at the shell prompt.
1441
1442Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1443`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1444program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1445files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1446be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1447considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1448name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1449
1450`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1451
1452* New platform-independent commands:
1453
1454It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1455hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1456documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1457
1458* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1459
d7275149
MK
1460Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1461revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1462many threads as your system allows you to have.
1463
e23194cb
EZ
1464Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1465
d7275149
MK
1466Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1467multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1468
1469* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1470
1471Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1472
e23194cb
EZ
1473GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1474debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1475supported.)
1476
1477* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1478
1479Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1480breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1481implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1482put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1483and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1484registers.
1485
1486The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1487debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1488watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1489
1490* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1491
1492New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1493the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1494
1495New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1496display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1497IDT.
1498
1499New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1500from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1501New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1502a given linear address.
1503
1504GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1505program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1506which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1507
1508DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1509
6c56c069
EZ
1510It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1511
e23194cb
EZ
1512* Changes in documentation.
1513
1514All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1515Documentation License.
1516
1517Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1518manual.
1519
1520TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1521
1522Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1523manual.
1524
1525The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1526documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1527hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1528
5d6640b1
AC
1529* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1530
1531The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1532``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1533contents of this file.
1534
1a1d8446
AC
1535* gdba.el deleted
1536
1537GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1538
9debab2f 1539*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1540
c63ce875
EZ
1541* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1542
1543Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1544programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1545displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1546greater level of detail.
1547
1548* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1549
1550It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1551bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1552on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1553written.
1554
1555* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1556
1557The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1558necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1559machines ``out of the box''.
1560
1561The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1562possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1563signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1564would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1565interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1566
1567It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1568standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1569even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1570and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1571terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1572
1573The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1574enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1575also works.
1576
1577DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1578GDB.
1579
1580It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1581directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1582times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1583breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1584
ed9a39eb
JM
1585* New native configurations
1586
1587ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1588PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1589
7a292a7a
SS
1590* New targets
1591
96baa820 1592Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1593x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1594PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1595TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1596
085dd6e6
JM
1597* OBSOLETE configurations
1598
1599Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1600Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1601Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1602ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1603Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1604
9debab2f
AC
1605Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1606but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1607these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1608be permanently REMOVED.
1609
5330533d
SS
1610* Gould support removed
1611
1612Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1613
bc9e5bbf
AC
1614* New features for SVR4
1615
1616On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1617without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1618load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1619
1620* Many C++ enhancements
1621
1622C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1623in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1624
adf40b2e
JM
1625* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1626
1627A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1628sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1629with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1630``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1631
1632 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1633 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1634
43e526b9
JM
1635* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1636
1637A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1638expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1639instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1640
1641The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1642added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1643
96baa820
JM
1644* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1645
1646The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1647``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1648include ``set remote P-packet''.
1649
11cf8741
JM
1650* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1651
1652The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1653accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1654``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1655
7876dd43
DB
1656* ``apropos'' command added.
1657
1658The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1659documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1660try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1661
bc9e5bbf
AC
1662* New MI interface
1663
1664A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1665interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1666process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1667"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1668enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1669
1670 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1671
c906108c
SS
1672*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1673
1674* New native configurations
1675
1676HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1677HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1678M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1679
1680* New targets
1681
1682Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1683Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1684Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1685
1686* OBSOLETE configurations
1687
1688Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1689
1690Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1691but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1692these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1693be permanently REMOVED.
1694
1695* ANSI/ISO C
1696
1697As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1698buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1699containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1700use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1701available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1702configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1703information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1704already.
1705
1706* Readline 2.2
1707
1708GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1709
1710* set extension-language
1711
1712You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1713languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1714you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1715 set extension-language .c c++
1716The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1717and their associated languages.
1718
1719* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1720
1721When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1722you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1723PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1724
1725 set processor NAME
1726
1727sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1728following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1729
1730 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1731 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1732 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1733 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1734 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1735 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1736 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1737 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1738 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1739 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1740 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1741
1742At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1743special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1744registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1745only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1746
1747* HP-UX support
1748
1749Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1750more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1751library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1752support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1753for xdb and dbx commands.
1754
1755* Catchpoints
1756
1757HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1758generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1759to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1760
1761This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1762argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1763output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1764
1765* Debugging across forks
1766
1767On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1768in the inferior.
1769
1770* TUI
1771
1772HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1773it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1774configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1775
1776* GDB remote protocol additions
1777
1778A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1779Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1780fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1781allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1782
1783For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1784full 64-bit address. The command
1785
1786 set remoteaddresssize 32
1787
1788can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1789the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1790will be discarded.
1791
1792In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1793command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1794
1795 maint packet heythere
1796
1797sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1798disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1799time.
1800
1801The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1802target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1803downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1804
1805* Tracing can collect general expressions
1806
1807You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1808further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1809doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1810
1811* mask-address variable for Mips
1812
1813For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1814a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1815of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1816
1817* Higher serial baud rates
1818
1819GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1820230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1821to achieve all of these rates.)
1822
1823* i960 simulator
1824
1825The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1826builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1827
1828
1829*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1830
1831* New native configurations
1832
1833Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1834Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1835Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1836PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1837PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1838Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1839Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1840
1841* New targets
1842
1843Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1844Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1845Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1846Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1847MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1848MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1849MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1850Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1851Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1852Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1853NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1854
1855* New debugging protocols
1856
1857ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1858M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1859DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1860PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1861PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1862Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1863
1864* DWARF 2
1865
1866All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1867format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1868information.
1869
1870* Java frontend
1871
1872GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1873only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1874
1875* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1876
1877For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1878loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1879locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1880
1881* Live range splitting
1882
1883GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1884range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1885more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1886
1887* Hurd support
1888
1889GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1890updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1891
1892* ARM Thumb support
1893
1894GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1895instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1896instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1897accordingly.
1898
1899* MIPS16 support
1900
1901GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1902instruction set.
1903
1904* Overlay support
1905
1906GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1907linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1908will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1909control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1910additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1911in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1912
1913* info symbol
1914
1915The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1916the symbol at the specified address.
1917
1918* Trace support
1919
1920The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1921asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1922extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1923includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1924file tracepoint.c for more details.
1925
1926* MIPS simulator
1927
1928Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1929by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1930of most MIPS variants.
1931
1932* Sparc simulator
1933
1934Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1935by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1936Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1937
1938* set architecture
1939
1940For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1941basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1942architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1943the possible architectures.
1944
1945*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1946
1947* New native configurations
1948
1949Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1950M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1951PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1952PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1953PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1954RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1955
1956* New targets
1957
1958ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1959I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1960MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1961MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1962PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1963Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1964Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1965
1966* PowerPC simulator
1967
1968The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1969contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1970PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1971basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1972performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1973
1974* Solaris 2.5
1975
1976GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1977
1978* Windows 95/NT native
1979
1980GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1981To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1982which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1983Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1984ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1985
1986* dont-repeat command
1987
1988If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1989command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1990useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1991extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1992
1993* Send break instead of ^C
1994
1995The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1996rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1997GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1998
1999* Remote protocol timeout
2000
2001The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2002that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2003to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2004
2005* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2006
2007By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2008loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2009stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2010when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2011in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2012
2013Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2014/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2015automatically on hpux10.
2016
2017* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2018
2019Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2020
2021* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2022
2023When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2024may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2025the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2026every character. The default value is 1050.
2027
2028* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2029
2030If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2031a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2032replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2033details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2034remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2035to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2036
2037* Speedups for remote debugging
2038
2039GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2040the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2041and more efficient S-record downloading.
2042
2043* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2044
2045GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2046Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2047
2048*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2049
2050* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2051
2052The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2053can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2054
2055* Remote targets use caching
2056
2057Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2058remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2059it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2060debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2061off' turns the the data cache off.
2062
2063* Remote targets may have threads
2064
2065The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2066in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2067gdb/remote.c for details.
2068
2069* NetROM support
2070
2071If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2072support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2073acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2074write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2075support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2076another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2077sequence is something like
2078
2079 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2080 load <prog>
2081 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2082
2083* Macintosh host
2084
2085GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2086may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2087it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2088available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2089device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2090directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2091scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2092mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2093
2094* Autoconf
2095
2096GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2097but does simplify configuration and building.
2098
2099* hpux10
2100
2101GDB now supports hpux10.
2102
2103*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2104
2105* New native configurations
2106
2107x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2108x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2109NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2110Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2111
2112* New targets
2113
2114A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2115HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2116CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2117PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2118WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2119
2120* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2121
2122GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2123possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2124filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2125the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2126if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2127
2128* Arguments to user-defined commands
2129
2130User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2131Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2132trivial example:
2133define adder
2134 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2135
2136To execute the command use:
2137adder 1 2 3
2138
2139Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2140Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2141use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2142
2143* New `if' and `while' commands
2144
2145This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2146commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2147expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2148execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2149terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2150`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2151if the expression is zero.
2152
2153* Fortran source language mode
2154
2155GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2156Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2157variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2158with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2159Fortran compilers.
2160
2161* Better HPUX support
2162
2163Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2164running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2165processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2166for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2167that behavior do the following before running the program:
2168
2169 adb -w a.out
2170 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2171 control-d
2172
2173This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2174To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2175
2176 adb -w a.out
2177 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2178 control-d
2179
2180You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2181the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2182external linkage.
2183
2184GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2185HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2186
2187* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2188
2189You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2190commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2191current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2192"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2193associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2194configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2195
2196* New DOS host serial code
2197
2198This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2199no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2200a PC's serial port.
2201
2202*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2203
2204* New "complete" command
2205
2206This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2207were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2208
2209* Trailing space optional in prompt
2210
2211"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2212allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2213
2214* Breakpoint hit counts
2215
2216"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2217has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2218can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2219to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2220less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2221that breakpoint.
2222
2223* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2224
2225"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2226an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2227arrays actually contain only short strings.
2228
2229* Shared library breakpoints
2230
2231In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2232breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2233
2234* Hardware watchpoints
2235
2236There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2237targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2238
55241689 2239Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2240
2241* Annotations
2242
2243Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2244and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2245
2246* Improved Irix 5 support
2247
2248GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2249
2250* Improved HPPA support
2251
2252GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2253
2254* New native configurations
2255
2256Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2257HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2258Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2259RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2260
2261* New targets
2262
2263OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2264MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2265Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2266
2267* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2268
2269There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2270This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2271
2272* Fixes
2273
2274As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2275and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2276
2277*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2278
2279* Irix 5 is now supported
2280
2281* HPPA support
2282
2283GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2284to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2285GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2286of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2287can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2288
2289
2290*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2291
2292* User visible changes:
2293
2294* Remote Debugging
2295
2296The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2297target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2298debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2299integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2300debugging info for the mips target).
2301
2302* DEC Alpha native support
2303
2304GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2305debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2306work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2307Alpha-specific notes.
2308
2309* Preliminary thread implementation
2310
2311GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2312
2313* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2314
2315This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2316to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2317for details).
2318
2319* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2320
2321This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2322mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2323call methods, ...etc.
2324
2325*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2326
2327 * User visible changes:
2328
2329Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2330supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2331other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2332somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2333
2334Filename completion now works.
2335
2336When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2337arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2338addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2339
2340All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2341vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2342should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2343your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2344to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2345
2346 * DEC alpha support
2347
2348This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2349cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2350
2351
2352*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2353
2354 * Testsuite
2355
2356This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2357The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2358via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2359
2360 * C++ demangling
2361
2362'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2363emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2364Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2365disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2366use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2367
2368 * Simulators
2369
2370GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2371So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2372Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2373
2374 * New targets supported
2375
2376H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2377H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2378SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2379Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2380IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2381
2382Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2383version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2384GO32 memory extender.
2385
2386 * New remote protocols
2387
2388MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2389
2390 * New source languages supported
2391
2392This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2393used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2394into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2395
2396
2397*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2398
2399 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2400
2401GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2402version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2403University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2404compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2405format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2406(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2407
2408Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2409
2410 * Faster and better demangling
2411
2412We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2413demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2414character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2415only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2416This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2417increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2418symbol lookups.
2419
2420`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2421from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2422compiler does not actually implement.
2423
2424 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2425
2426In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2427inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2428recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2429very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2430The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2431circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2432fix.
2433
2434The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2435release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2436
2437 * Improved configure script
2438
2439The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2440you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2441host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2442done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2443
2444We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2445version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2446`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2447The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2448only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2449We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2450
2451 * Documentation improvements
2452
2453There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2454produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2455before submitting changes.
2456
2457The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2458M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2459`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2460you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2461a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2462
2463*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2464We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2465been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2466or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2467`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2468around this problem.
2469
2470 * New features
2471
2472GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2473the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2474`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2475the target program.
2476
2477The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2478how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2479
2480 * New native hosts supported
2481
2482HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2483386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2484
2485 * New targets supported
2486
2487AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2488
2489 * New file formats supported
2490
2491BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2492HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2493
2494 * Major bug fixes
2495
2496Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2497
2498We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2499printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2500
2501We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2502for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2503release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2504
2505You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2506will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2507
2508We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2509for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2510especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2511libraries.
2512
2513The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2514information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2515command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2516any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2517when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2518
2519 * Internal improvements
2520
2521GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2522debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2523
2524GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2525Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2526symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2527contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2528shared code that handles any of them.
2529
2530 * New command line options
2531
2532We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2533
2534 * Mmalloc licensing
2535
2536The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2537General Public License.
2538
2539*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2540
2541 * Host/native/target split
2542
2543GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2544hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2545target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2546local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2547ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2548
2549The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2550GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2551is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2552code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2553any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2554built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2555handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2556
2557GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2558It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2559plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2560
2561 * New hosts supported
2562
2563HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2564386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2565386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2566
2567 * New targets supported
2568
2569Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
257068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2571
2572 * New native hosts supported
2573
2574386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2575 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2576386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2577
2578 * New file formats supported
2579
2580BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2581supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2582format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2583
2584 * New commands
2585
2586`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2587`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2588These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2589
2590`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2591
2592You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2593scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2594prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2595executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2596
2597 * C++ improvements
2598
2599We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2600info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2601symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2602
2603Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2604
2605 * Major bug fixes
2606
2607The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2608fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2609by the compiler.
2610
2611We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2612support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2613
2614John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2615slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2616that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2617purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2618the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2619mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2620
2621Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2622about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2623completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2624we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2625
2626 * AMD 29k support
2627
2628A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2629specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2630calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2631usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2632in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2633
2634We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2635Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2636of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2637resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2638
2639 * Remote interfaces
2640
2641We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2642with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2643message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2644This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2645needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2646breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2647each instruction being stepped through.
2648
2649The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2650registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2651
2652There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2653find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2654Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2655processor with a serial port.
2656
2657 * Configuration
2658
2659Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2660`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2661supported, and what files each one uses.
2662
2663 * Library changes
2664
2665There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2666disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2667Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2668disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2669
2670The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2671Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2672can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2673grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2674
2675 * Documentation
2676
2677The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2678reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2679as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2680encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2681system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2682bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2683
2684And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2685
2686
2687*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2688
2689 * Better support for C++ function names
2690
2691GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2692names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2693(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2694single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2695Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2696
2697GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2698the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2699You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2700lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2701for the list of formats.
2702
2703 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2704
2705Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2706C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2707directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2708can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2709usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2710about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2711this problem.)
2712
2713 * New 'maintenance' command
2714
2715All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2716the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2717can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2718
2719 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2720 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2721 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2722 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2723 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2724 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2725
2726The following commands are new:
2727
2728 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2729 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2730 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2731
2732 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2733
2734We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2735(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2736be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2737read after argv processing.
2738
2739 * New hosts supported
2740
2741Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2742
55241689 2743GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2744
2745We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2746is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2747for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2748masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2749fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2750It costs extra.
2751
2752 * New targets supported
2753
2754Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2755
2756 * More smarts about finding #include files
2757
2758GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2759all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2760greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2761especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2762the one that contains your sources.
2763
2764We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2765breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2766try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2767
2768 * Interesting infernals change
2769
2770GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2771section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2772target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2773stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2774
2775 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2776
2777There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2778 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2779 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2780
2781See the ChangeLog for details.
2782
2783*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2784
2785 * New machines supported (host and target)
2786
2787IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2788
2789SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2790
2791 * New malloc package
2792
2793GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2794Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2795capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2796This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2797pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2798more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2799
2800 * info proc
2801
2802The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2803'help info proc' for details.
2804
2805 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2806
2807The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2808Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2809possible.
2810
2811 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2812
2813Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2814support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2815conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2816environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2817that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2818in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2819
2820 * Cross byte order fixes
2821
2822Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2823targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2824
2825 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2826
2827If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2828system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2829`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2830program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2831called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2832Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2833and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2834the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2835option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2836starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2837
2838You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2839the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2840information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2841slower, but makes future operations faster.
2842
2843The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2844build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2845A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2846use is:
2847
2848 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2849
2850The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2851It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2852shared across multiple host platforms.
2853
2854 * longjmp() handling
2855
2856GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2857siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2858all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2859platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2860
2861 * Solaris 2.0
2862
2863Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2864this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2865reading symbols.
2866
2867 * Bug fixes
2868
2869As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2870People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2871crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2872
2873*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2874
2875 * New machines supported (host and target)
2876
2877SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2878 (except core files)
2879BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2880Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2881
2882 * New machines supported (target)
2883
2884AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2885
2886 * C++ support
2887
2888GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2889The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2890per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2891
2892GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2893`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2894extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2895good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2896will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2897released.
2898
2899 * New features for SVR4
2900
2901GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2902shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2903only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2904
2905The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2906on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2907it prints the address mappings of the process.
2908
2909If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2910bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2911
2912 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2913
2914Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2915now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2916skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2917make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2918same code linked statically.
2919
2920 * New Getopt
2921
2922GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2923version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2924continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2925Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2926added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2927future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2928
2929 * Bugs fixed
2930
2931The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2932Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2933See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2934
2935
2936*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2937
2938 * New machines supported (host and target)
2939
2940Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2941NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2942Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2943
2944 * Almost SCO Unix support
2945
2946We had hoped to support:
2947SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2948(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2949that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2950about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2951
2952 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2953
2954GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2955debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2956is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2957send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2958reqired (if any).
2959
2960 * New Readline
2961
2962GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2963is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2964required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2965
2966 * Bugs fixed
2967
2968The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2969Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2970See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2971
2972 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2973
2974GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2975supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2976symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2977
2978Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2979mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2980debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2981mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2982version 2.
2983
2984Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2985really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2986line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2987variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2988situation somewhat.
2989
2990When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2991However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2992methods.
2993
2994We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2995DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2996encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2997
2998
2999*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3000
3001 * Improved configuration
3002
3003Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3004Porting BFD is simpler.
3005
3006 * Stepping improved
3007
3008The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3009of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3010in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3011function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3012
3013 * Bug fixing
3014
3015Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3016
3017 * New host supported (not target)
3018
3019Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3020
3021
3022*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3023
3024 * Multiple source language support
3025
3026GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3027It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3028and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3029language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3030You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3031`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3032
3033 * GDB and Modula-2
3034
3035GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3036currently under development at the State University of New York at
3037Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3038continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3039
3040Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3041debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3042symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3043
3044There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3045in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3046
3047 * set write on/off
3048
3049GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3050a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3051the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3052by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3053effect immediately.
3054
3055 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3056
3057When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3058shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3059The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3060examining core files.
3061
3062 * set listsize
3063
3064You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3065The default is 10.
3066
3067 * New machines supported (host and target)
3068
3069SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3070Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3071Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3072
3073 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3074
3075IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3076
3077 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3078
3079AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3080AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3081Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3082
3083 * New remote interfaces
3084
3085AMD 29000 Adapt
3086AMD 29000 Minimon
3087
3088
3089*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3090
3091 * New Facilities
3092
3093Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3094
3095Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3096target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3097is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3098remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3099remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3100also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3101using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3102stub on the target system.
3103
3104New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3105
3106GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3107library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3108object file types such as a.out and coff.
3109
3110There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3111refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3112
3113
3114 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3115
3116All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3117by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3118
3119For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3120``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3121Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3122
3123What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3124print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3125will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3126all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3127
3128confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3129 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3130 it is already running. Default is ON.
3131
3132editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3133 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3134 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3135 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3136 Default is ON.
3137
3138history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3139 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3140 or the value of the environment variable
3141 GDBHISTFILE.
3142
3143history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3144 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3145 HISTSIZE.
3146
3147history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3148 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3149 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3150
3151history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3152 history expansion will be performed on
3153 command line input. The default is OFF.
3154
3155radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3156 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3157 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3158
3159height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3160 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3161 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3162 variable TERM.
3163
3164width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3165 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3166 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3167 variable TERM.
3168
3169Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3170``set width'' instead.
3171
3172print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3173 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3174 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3175 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3176
3177print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3178 is OFF.
3179
3180print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3181 "raw" form if off.
3182
3183print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3184 like instructions.
3185
3186print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3187
3188
3189 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3190
3191The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3192new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3193are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3194window.
3195
3196
3197 * Support for Shared Libraries
3198
3199GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3200Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3201before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3202happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3203At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3204from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3205shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3206It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3207
3208sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3209 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3210 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3211
3212info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3213
3214
3215 * Watchpoints
3216
3217A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3218expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3219tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3220quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3221problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3222more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3223
3224watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3225
3226info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3227
3228delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3229disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3230enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3231
3232
3233 * C++ multiple inheritance
3234
3235When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3236for C++ programs.
3237
3238 * C++ exception handling
3239
3240Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3241ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3242the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3243handler's context).
3244
3245catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3246 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3247 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3248
3249info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3250 current stack frame.
3251
3252
3253 * Minor command changes
3254
3255The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3256command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3257is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3258
3259The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3260at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3261frames without printing.
3262
3263 * New directory command
3264
3265'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3266The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3267about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3268with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3269find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3270
3271 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3272
3273For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3274for more details.
3275
3276GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3277two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3278Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3279where the program that you are debugging will run.