]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
ChangeLog for previous commit. Sorry for the screw-up.
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
f2c06f52
AC
4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
9175c9a3
MC
6* Removed --with-mmalloc
7
8Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
9conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
10
3cc87ec0
MK
11* Changes in AMD64 configurations
12
13The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
14the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
15and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
16you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
17
f0424ef6
MK
18* Revised SPARC target
19
20The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
21FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
22support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped.
23
59659be2
ILT
24* New C++ demangler
25
26GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
27names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
28with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
29programs.
30
9e08b29b
DJ
31* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
32
33GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
34arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
35encountered these.
36
cced5e27
MK
37* New native configurations
38
39NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
f2cab569
MK
40OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
41OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 42
b4b4b794
KI
43* New debugging protocols
44
45M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
46
7989c619
AC
47* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
48
49The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
50and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
51tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
52
5994185b
AC
53* OBSOLETE configurations and files
54
55Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
56been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
57configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
58permanently REMOVED.
59
60Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
61Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
62Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
63Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
64Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
65AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
66Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
67decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
68riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
69sonymips mips-sony-*
70sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 71
0ddabb4c
AC
72* REMOVED configurations and files
73
74SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
75SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
76Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
77Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
78H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
79HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
80HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
81HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
82PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
83Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
84 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
85 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
86SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
87SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
88Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
89Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 90
c7f1390e
DJ
91*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
92
1fe43d45
AC
93* Objective-C
94
95Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
96integrated into GDB.
97
e6beb428
AC
98* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
99
100DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
101information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
102By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
103backtraces.
104
105The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
106have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
107DWARF 2 CFI support.
108
109* Hosted file I/O.
110
111GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
112file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
113remote protocol documentation for details.
114
115* All targets using the new architecture framework.
116
117All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
118architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
119to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
120ppc32 on ppc64).
121
122* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
123
124GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
125per-thread variables.
126
127* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
128
129GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
130GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
131
132* Separate debug info.
133
134GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
135automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
136of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
137system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
138and optional debug files.
139
140* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
141
142DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
143describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
144debugger.
145
146GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
147for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
148
149* Java
150
151A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
152Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
153considered "useable".
154
85f8f974
DJ
155* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
156
157The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
158commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
159kernel.
160
0fac0b41
DJ
161* GDB supports logging output to a file
162
163There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
164used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 165
6ad8ae5c
DJ
166* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
167
168The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
169disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
170command.
171
e286caf2 172* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
173
174The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
175registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
176
d28f9cdf
DJ
177* Profiling support
178
179A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
180be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
181session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
182"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
183data, for more informative profiling results.
184
da0f9dcd
AC
185* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
186
187The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
188option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 189"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
190
191Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
192removed.
193
fb9b6b35
JJ
194Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
195Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
196Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
197 in a subsequent -var-update.
198
954a4db8
MK
199* New native configurations.
200
201FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
202
6760f9e6
JB
203* Multi-arched targets.
204
b4263afa 205HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 206Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 207
1b831c93
AC
208* OBSOLETE configurations and files
209
210Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
211been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
212configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
213permanently REMOVED.
214
8b0e5691 215Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 216Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 217H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
218HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
219HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
220HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 221PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
222Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
223 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
224 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
225Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
226Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 227
5835abe7
NC
228* REMOVED configurations and files
229
230V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
231Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
232IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
233i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
234i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
235i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
236HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
237 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
238 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
239Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
240Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
241Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
242OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
243I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 244
a094c6fb
AC
245* MIPS $fp behavior changed
246
247The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
248the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
249context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
250address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
251The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
252
299ffc64 253*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 254
46248966
AC
255* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
256
257When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
258`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
259in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
260library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
261shared libs like mad''.
262
b9d14705 263* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 264
b9d14705
DJ
265Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
266the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
267arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
268powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 269
e0e9281e
JB
270* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
271
272GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
273and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
274they expand.
275
dd73b9bb
AC
276The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
277invocations in expression, and shows the result.
278
279The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
280macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
281
e0e9281e
JB
282Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
283information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
284your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
285information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
286
2250ee0c
CV
287* Multi-arched targets.
288
6e3ba3b8
JT
289DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
290DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 291NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 292National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
293Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
294Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 295
cd9bfe15 296* New targets.
e33ce519 297
456f8b9d
DB
298Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
299
e33ce519 300
da8ca43d
JT
301* New native configurations
302
303Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 304SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 305MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 306UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 307
cd9bfe15
AC
308* OBSOLETE configurations and files
309
310Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
311been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
312configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
313permanently REMOVED.
314
92eb23c5 315Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 316OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 317IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 318Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 319Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 320Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
321i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
322i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
323i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
324HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
325 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
326 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 327I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 328
db034ac5
AC
329* OBSOLETE languages
330
331CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
332
cd9bfe15
AC
333* REMOVED configurations and files
334
335AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
336A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
337AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
338AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
339AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
340
341testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
342
20f01a46
DH
343* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
344
345This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
346commands. The default is 1024.
347
a5941fbf
MK
348* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
349
350Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
351
89743e04
MS
352* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
353
354These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
355to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
356from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 357
9fb14e79
JB
358* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
359
360The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
361including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
362of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
363
2037aebb
AC
364*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
365
366* New targets.
367
368Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
369
370* Bug fixes
371
372gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
373mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
374Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
375
376gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
377dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
378Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
379
380Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
381Surprisingly enough, it works now.
382By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
383
384i386 hardware watchpoint support:
385avoid misses on second run for some targets.
386By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
387
37057839 388*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 389
1a703748
MS
390* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
391
392This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
393really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
394In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
395target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
396This can be a significant performance improvement on some
397(notably embedded) targets.
398
cefd4ef5
MS
399* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
400
55241689
AC
401This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
402process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
403GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
404hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 405
352ed7b4
MS
406* New command line option
407
408GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
409
410* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
411
412There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
413command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
414a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
415be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
416open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
417issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
418a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
419it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
420GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
421is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
422
fe419ffc
RE
423* Changes in ARM configurations.
424
425Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
426configuration is fully multi-arch.
427
eb7cedd9
MK
428* New native configurations
429
fe419ffc 430ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 431x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 432AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 433Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 434
c9f63e6b
CV
435* New targets
436
437Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
438
9b4ff276
AC
439* OBSOLETE configurations and files
440
441Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
442been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
443configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
444permanently REMOVED.
445
446AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
447A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
448AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
449AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
450AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
451
b4ceaee6 452testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 453
e2caac18
AC
454* REMOVED configurations and files
455
456TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 457WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
458PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
459PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
460PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 461Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
462Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
463 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 464SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 465Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
466Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
467ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 468Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 469
c2a727fa
TT
470* Changes to command line processing
471
472The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
473for the inferior from gdb's command line.
474
467d8519
TT
475* Changes to key bindings
476
477There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
478
7072a954
AC
479*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
480
481Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
482
483Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
484corrupted.
485
486Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
487
488Numerous documentation fixes.
489
490Numerous testsuite fixes.
491
34f47bc4 492*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
493
494* New native configurations
495
496Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
497x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 498MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
499MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
500ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 501s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 502
bf64bfd6
AC
503* New targets
504
def90278 505Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 506CRIS cris-axis
55241689 507UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 508
17e78a56 509* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
510
511x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 512Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
513Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
514 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
515TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
516WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 517Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
518PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
519PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
520PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 521SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
522Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
523ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 524Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 525
17e78a56
AC
526stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
527kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
528
7fcca85b
AC
529Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
530been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
531configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
532permanently REMOVED.
533
a196c81c 534* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
535
536Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
537Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
538Pyramid pyramid-*-*
539ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
540Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 541ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 542
6d6b80e5 543* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 544
6d6b80e5 545GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
546sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
547present.
548
bf64bfd6
AC
549* Other news:
550
e23194cb
EZ
551* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
552
553* The MI enabled by default.
554
555The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
556revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
557engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
558using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
559which is now deprecated.
560
561* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
562
563GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
564main features are supported:
565
566 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
567
568 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
569 extension;
570
571 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
572
573 - a Pascal expression parser.
574
575However, some important features are not yet supported.
576
577 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
578
579 - there are some problems with boolean types;
580
581 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
582 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
583
584 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
585
586 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
587
588* Changes in completion.
589
590Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
591to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
592users expect at the shell prompt.
593
594Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
595`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
596program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
597files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
598be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
599considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
600name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
601
602`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
603
604* New platform-independent commands:
605
606It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
607hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
608documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
609
610* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
611
d7275149
MK
612Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
613revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
614many threads as your system allows you to have.
615
e23194cb
EZ
616Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
617
d7275149
MK
618Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
619multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
620
621* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
622
623Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
624
e23194cb
EZ
625GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
626debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
627supported.)
628
629* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
630
631Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
632breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
633implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
634put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
635and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
636registers.
637
638The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
639debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
640watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
641
642* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
643
644New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
645the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
646
647New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
648display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
649IDT.
650
651New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
652from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
653New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
654a given linear address.
655
656GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
657program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
658which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
659
660DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
661
6c56c069
EZ
662It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
663
e23194cb
EZ
664* Changes in documentation.
665
666All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
667Documentation License.
668
669Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
670manual.
671
672TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
673
674Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
675manual.
676
677The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
678documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
679hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
680
5d6640b1
AC
681* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
682
683The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
684``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
685contents of this file.
686
1a1d8446
AC
687* gdba.el deleted
688
689GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 690
9debab2f 691*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 692
c63ce875
EZ
693* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
694
695Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
696programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
697displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
698greater level of detail.
699
700* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
701
702It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
703bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
704on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
705written.
706
707* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
708
709The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
710necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
711machines ``out of the box''.
712
713The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
714possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
715signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
716would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
717interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
718
719It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
720standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
721even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
722and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
723terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
724
725The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
726enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
727also works.
728
729DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
730GDB.
731
732It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
733directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
734times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
735breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
736
ed9a39eb
JM
737* New native configurations
738
739ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 740PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 741
7a292a7a
SS
742* New targets
743
96baa820 744Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
745x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
746PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
747TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
748
085dd6e6
JM
749* OBSOLETE configurations
750
751Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
752Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 753Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 754ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 755Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 756
9debab2f
AC
757Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
758but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
759these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
760be permanently REMOVED.
761
5330533d
SS
762* Gould support removed
763
764Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
765
bc9e5bbf
AC
766* New features for SVR4
767
768On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
769without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
770load symbols from the running process's executable file.
771
772* Many C++ enhancements
773
774C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
775in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
776
adf40b2e
JM
777* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
778
779A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
780sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
781with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
782``|<program> <args>'' vis:
783
784 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
785 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
786
43e526b9
JM
787* MIPS 64 remote protocol
788
789A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
790expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
791instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
792
793The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
794added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
795
96baa820
JM
796* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
797
798The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
799``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
800include ``set remote P-packet''.
801
11cf8741
JM
802* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
803
804The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
805accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
806``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
807
7876dd43
DB
808* ``apropos'' command added.
809
810The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
811documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
812try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
813
bc9e5bbf
AC
814* New MI interface
815
816A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
817interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
818process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
819"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
820enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
821
822 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
823
c906108c
SS
824*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
825
826* New native configurations
827
828HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
829HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 830M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
831
832* New targets
833
834Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
835Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
836Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
837
838* OBSOLETE configurations
839
840Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
841
842Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
843but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
844these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
845be permanently REMOVED.
846
847* ANSI/ISO C
848
849As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
850buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
851containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
852use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
853available. If this is not true, please report the affected
854configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
855information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
856already.
857
858* Readline 2.2
859
860GDB now uses readline 2.2.
861
862* set extension-language
863
864You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
865languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
866you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
867 set extension-language .c c++
868The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
869and their associated languages.
870
871* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
872
873When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
874you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
875PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
876
877 set processor NAME
878
879sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
880following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
881
882 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
883 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
884 403 IBM PowerPC 403
885 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
886 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
887 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
888 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
889 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
890 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
891 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
892 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
893
894At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
895special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
896registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
897only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
898
899* HP-UX support
900
901Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
902more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
903library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
904support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
905for xdb and dbx commands.
906
907* Catchpoints
908
909HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
910generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
911to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
912
913This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
914argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
915output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
916
917* Debugging across forks
918
919On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
920in the inferior.
921
922* TUI
923
924HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
925it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
926configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
927
928* GDB remote protocol additions
929
930A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
931Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
932fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
933allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
934
935For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
936full 64-bit address. The command
937
938 set remoteaddresssize 32
939
940can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
941the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
942will be discarded.
943
944In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
945command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
946
947 maint packet heythere
948
949sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
950disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
951time.
952
953The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
954target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
955downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
956
957* Tracing can collect general expressions
958
959You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
960further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
961doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
962
963* mask-address variable for Mips
964
965For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
966a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
967of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
968
969* Higher serial baud rates
970
971GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
972230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
973to achieve all of these rates.)
974
975* i960 simulator
976
977The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
978builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
979
980
981*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
982
983* New native configurations
984
985Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
986Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
987Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
988PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
989PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
990Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
991Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
992
993* New targets
994
995Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
996Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
997Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
998Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
999MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1000MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1001MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1002Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1003Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1004Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1005NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1006
1007* New debugging protocols
1008
1009ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1010M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1011DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1012PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1013PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1014Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1015
1016* DWARF 2
1017
1018All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1019format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1020information.
1021
1022* Java frontend
1023
1024GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1025only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1026
1027* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1028
1029For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1030loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1031locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1032
1033* Live range splitting
1034
1035GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1036range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1037more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1038
1039* Hurd support
1040
1041GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1042updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1043
1044* ARM Thumb support
1045
1046GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1047instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1048instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1049accordingly.
1050
1051* MIPS16 support
1052
1053GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1054instruction set.
1055
1056* Overlay support
1057
1058GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1059linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1060will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1061control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1062additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1063in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1064
1065* info symbol
1066
1067The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1068the symbol at the specified address.
1069
1070* Trace support
1071
1072The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1073asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1074extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1075includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1076file tracepoint.c for more details.
1077
1078* MIPS simulator
1079
1080Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1081by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1082of most MIPS variants.
1083
1084* Sparc simulator
1085
1086Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1087by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1088Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1089
1090* set architecture
1091
1092For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1093basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1094architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1095the possible architectures.
1096
1097*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1098
1099* New native configurations
1100
1101Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1102M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1103PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1104PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1105PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1106RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1107
1108* New targets
1109
1110ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1111I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1112MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1113MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1114PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1115Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1116Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1117
1118* PowerPC simulator
1119
1120The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1121contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1122PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1123basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1124performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1125
1126* Solaris 2.5
1127
1128GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1129
1130* Windows 95/NT native
1131
1132GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1133To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1134which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1135Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1136ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1137
1138* dont-repeat command
1139
1140If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1141command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1142useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1143extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1144
1145* Send break instead of ^C
1146
1147The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1148rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1149GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1150
1151* Remote protocol timeout
1152
1153The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1154that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1155to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1156
1157* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1158
1159By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1160loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1161stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1162when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1163in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1164
1165Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1166/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1167automatically on hpux10.
1168
1169* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1170
1171Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1172
1173* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1174
1175When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1176may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1177the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1178every character. The default value is 1050.
1179
1180* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1181
1182If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1183a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1184replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1185details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1186remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1187to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1188
1189* Speedups for remote debugging
1190
1191GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1192the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1193and more efficient S-record downloading.
1194
1195* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1196
1197GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1198Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1199
1200*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1201
1202* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1203
1204The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1205can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1206
1207* Remote targets use caching
1208
1209Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1210remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1211it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1212debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1213off' turns the the data cache off.
1214
1215* Remote targets may have threads
1216
1217The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1218in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1219gdb/remote.c for details.
1220
1221* NetROM support
1222
1223If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1224support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1225acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1226write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1227support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1228another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1229sequence is something like
1230
1231 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1232 load <prog>
1233 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1234
1235* Macintosh host
1236
1237GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1238may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1239it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1240available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1241device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1242directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1243scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1244mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1245
1246* Autoconf
1247
1248GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1249but does simplify configuration and building.
1250
1251* hpux10
1252
1253GDB now supports hpux10.
1254
1255*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1256
1257* New native configurations
1258
1259x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1260x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1261NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1262Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1263
1264* New targets
1265
1266A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1267HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1268CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1269PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1270WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1271
1272* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1273
1274GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1275possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1276filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1277the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1278if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1279
1280* Arguments to user-defined commands
1281
1282User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1283Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1284trivial example:
1285define adder
1286 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1287
1288To execute the command use:
1289adder 1 2 3
1290
1291Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1292Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1293use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1294
1295* New `if' and `while' commands
1296
1297This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1298commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1299expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1300execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1301terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1302`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1303if the expression is zero.
1304
1305* Fortran source language mode
1306
1307GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1308Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1309variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1310with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1311Fortran compilers.
1312
1313* Better HPUX support
1314
1315Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1316running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1317processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1318for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1319that behavior do the following before running the program:
1320
1321 adb -w a.out
1322 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1323 control-d
1324
1325This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1326To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1327
1328 adb -w a.out
1329 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1330 control-d
1331
1332You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1333the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1334external linkage.
1335
1336GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1337HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1338
1339* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1340
1341You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1342commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1343current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1344"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1345associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1346configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1347
1348* New DOS host serial code
1349
1350This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1351no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1352a PC's serial port.
1353
1354*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1355
1356* New "complete" command
1357
1358This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1359were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1360
1361* Trailing space optional in prompt
1362
1363"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1364allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1365
1366* Breakpoint hit counts
1367
1368"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1369has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1370can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1371to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1372less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1373that breakpoint.
1374
1375* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1376
1377"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1378an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1379arrays actually contain only short strings.
1380
1381* Shared library breakpoints
1382
1383In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1384breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1385
1386* Hardware watchpoints
1387
1388There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1389targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1390
55241689 1391Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1392
1393* Annotations
1394
1395Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1396and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1397
1398* Improved Irix 5 support
1399
1400GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1401
1402* Improved HPPA support
1403
1404GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1405
1406* New native configurations
1407
1408Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1409HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1410Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1411RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1412
1413* New targets
1414
1415OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1416MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1417Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1418
1419* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1420
1421There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1422This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1423
1424* Fixes
1425
1426As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1427and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1428
1429*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1430
1431* Irix 5 is now supported
1432
1433* HPPA support
1434
1435GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1436to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1437GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1438of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1439can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1440
1441
1442*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1443
1444* User visible changes:
1445
1446* Remote Debugging
1447
1448The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1449target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1450debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1451integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1452debugging info for the mips target).
1453
1454* DEC Alpha native support
1455
1456GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1457debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1458work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1459Alpha-specific notes.
1460
1461* Preliminary thread implementation
1462
1463GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1464
1465* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1466
1467This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1468to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1469for details).
1470
1471* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1472
1473This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1474mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1475call methods, ...etc.
1476
1477*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1478
1479 * User visible changes:
1480
1481Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1482supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1483other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1484somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1485
1486Filename completion now works.
1487
1488When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1489arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1490addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1491
1492All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1493vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1494should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1495your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1496to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1497
1498 * DEC alpha support
1499
1500This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1501cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1502
1503
1504*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1505
1506 * Testsuite
1507
1508This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1509The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1510via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1511
1512 * C++ demangling
1513
1514'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1515emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1516Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1517disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1518use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1519
1520 * Simulators
1521
1522GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1523So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1524Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1525
1526 * New targets supported
1527
1528H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1529H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1530SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1531Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1532IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1533
1534Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1535version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1536GO32 memory extender.
1537
1538 * New remote protocols
1539
1540MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1541
1542 * New source languages supported
1543
1544This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1545used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1546into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1547
1548
1549*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1550
1551 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1552
1553GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1554version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1555University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1556compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1557format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1558(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1559
1560Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1561
1562 * Faster and better demangling
1563
1564We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1565demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1566character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1567only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1568This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1569increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1570symbol lookups.
1571
1572`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1573from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1574compiler does not actually implement.
1575
1576 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1577
1578In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1579inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1580recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1581very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1582The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1583circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1584fix.
1585
1586The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1587release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1588
1589 * Improved configure script
1590
1591The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1592you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1593host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1594done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1595
1596We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1597version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1598`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1599The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1600only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1601We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1602
1603 * Documentation improvements
1604
1605There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1606produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1607before submitting changes.
1608
1609The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1610M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1611`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1612you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1613a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1614
1615*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1616We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1617been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1618or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1619`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1620around this problem.
1621
1622 * New features
1623
1624GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1625the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1626`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1627the target program.
1628
1629The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1630how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1631
1632 * New native hosts supported
1633
1634HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1635386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1636
1637 * New targets supported
1638
1639AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1640
1641 * New file formats supported
1642
1643BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1644HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1645
1646 * Major bug fixes
1647
1648Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1649
1650We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1651printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1652
1653We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1654for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1655release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1656
1657You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1658will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1659
1660We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1661for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1662especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1663libraries.
1664
1665The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1666information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1667command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1668any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1669when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1670
1671 * Internal improvements
1672
1673GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1674debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1675
1676GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1677Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1678symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1679contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1680shared code that handles any of them.
1681
1682 * New command line options
1683
1684We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1685
1686 * Mmalloc licensing
1687
1688The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1689General Public License.
1690
1691*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1692
1693 * Host/native/target split
1694
1695GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1696hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1697target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1698local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1699ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1700
1701The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1702GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1703is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1704code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1705any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1706built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1707handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1708
1709GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1710It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1711plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1712
1713 * New hosts supported
1714
1715HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1716386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1717386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1718
1719 * New targets supported
1720
1721Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
172268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1723
1724 * New native hosts supported
1725
1726386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1727 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1728386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1729
1730 * New file formats supported
1731
1732BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1733supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1734format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1735
1736 * New commands
1737
1738`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1739`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1740These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1741
1742`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1743
1744You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1745scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1746prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1747executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1748
1749 * C++ improvements
1750
1751We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1752info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1753symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1754
1755Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1756
1757 * Major bug fixes
1758
1759The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1760fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1761by the compiler.
1762
1763We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1764support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1765
1766John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1767slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1768that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1769purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1770the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1771mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1772
1773Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1774about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1775completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1776we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1777
1778 * AMD 29k support
1779
1780A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1781specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1782calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1783usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1784in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1785
1786We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1787Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1788of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1789resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1790
1791 * Remote interfaces
1792
1793We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1794with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1795message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1796This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1797needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1798breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1799each instruction being stepped through.
1800
1801The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1802registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1803
1804There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1805find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1806Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1807processor with a serial port.
1808
1809 * Configuration
1810
1811Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1812`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1813supported, and what files each one uses.
1814
1815 * Library changes
1816
1817There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1818disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1819Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1820disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1821
1822The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1823Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1824can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1825grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1826
1827 * Documentation
1828
1829The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1830reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1831as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1832encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1833system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1834bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1835
1836And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1837
1838
1839*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1840
1841 * Better support for C++ function names
1842
1843GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1844names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1845(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1846single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1847Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1848
1849GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1850the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1851You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1852lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1853for the list of formats.
1854
1855 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1856
1857Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1858C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1859directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1860can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1861usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1862about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1863this problem.)
1864
1865 * New 'maintenance' command
1866
1867All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1868the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1869can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1870
1871 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1872 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1873 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1874 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1875 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1876 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1877
1878The following commands are new:
1879
1880 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1881 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1882 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1883
1884 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1885
1886We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1887(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1888be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1889read after argv processing.
1890
1891 * New hosts supported
1892
1893Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1894
55241689 1895GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1896
1897We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1898is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1899for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1900masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1901fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1902It costs extra.
1903
1904 * New targets supported
1905
1906Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1907
1908 * More smarts about finding #include files
1909
1910GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1911all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1912greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1913especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1914the one that contains your sources.
1915
1916We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1917breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1918try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1919
1920 * Interesting infernals change
1921
1922GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1923section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1924target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1925stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1926
1927 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1928
1929There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1930 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1931 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1932
1933See the ChangeLog for details.
1934
1935*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1936
1937 * New machines supported (host and target)
1938
1939IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1940
1941SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1942
1943 * New malloc package
1944
1945GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1946Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1947capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1948This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1949pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1950more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1951
1952 * info proc
1953
1954The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1955'help info proc' for details.
1956
1957 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1958
1959The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1960Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1961possible.
1962
1963 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1964
1965Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1966support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1967conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1968environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1969that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1970in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1971
1972 * Cross byte order fixes
1973
1974Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1975targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1976
1977 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1978
1979If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1980system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1981`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1982program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1983called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1984Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1985and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1986the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1987option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1988starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1989
1990You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1991the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1992information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1993slower, but makes future operations faster.
1994
1995The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1996build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1997A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1998use is:
1999
2000 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2001
2002The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2003It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2004shared across multiple host platforms.
2005
2006 * longjmp() handling
2007
2008GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2009siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2010all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2011platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2012
2013 * Solaris 2.0
2014
2015Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2016this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2017reading symbols.
2018
2019 * Bug fixes
2020
2021As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2022People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2023crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2024
2025*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2026
2027 * New machines supported (host and target)
2028
2029SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2030 (except core files)
2031BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2032Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2033
2034 * New machines supported (target)
2035
2036AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2037
2038 * C++ support
2039
2040GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2041The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2042per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2043
2044GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2045`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2046extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2047good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2048will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2049released.
2050
2051 * New features for SVR4
2052
2053GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2054shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2055only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2056
2057The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2058on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2059it prints the address mappings of the process.
2060
2061If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2062bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2063
2064 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2065
2066Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2067now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2068skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2069make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2070same code linked statically.
2071
2072 * New Getopt
2073
2074GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2075version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2076continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2077Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2078added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2079future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2080
2081 * Bugs fixed
2082
2083The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2084Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2085See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2086
2087
2088*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2089
2090 * New machines supported (host and target)
2091
2092Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2093NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2094Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2095
2096 * Almost SCO Unix support
2097
2098We had hoped to support:
2099SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2100(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2101that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2102about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2103
2104 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2105
2106GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2107debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2108is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2109send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2110reqired (if any).
2111
2112 * New Readline
2113
2114GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2115is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2116required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2117
2118 * Bugs fixed
2119
2120The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2121Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2122See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2123
2124 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2125
2126GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2127supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2128symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2129
2130Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2131mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2132debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2133mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2134version 2.
2135
2136Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2137really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2138line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2139variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2140situation somewhat.
2141
2142When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2143However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2144methods.
2145
2146We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2147DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2148encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2149
2150
2151*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2152
2153 * Improved configuration
2154
2155Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2156Porting BFD is simpler.
2157
2158 * Stepping improved
2159
2160The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2161of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2162in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2163function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2164
2165 * Bug fixing
2166
2167Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2168
2169 * New host supported (not target)
2170
2171Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2172
2173
2174*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2175
2176 * Multiple source language support
2177
2178GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2179It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2180and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2181language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2182You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2183`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2184
2185 * GDB and Modula-2
2186
2187GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2188currently under development at the State University of New York at
2189Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2190continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2191
2192Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2193debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2194symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2195
2196There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2197in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2198
2199 * set write on/off
2200
2201GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2202a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2203the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2204by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2205effect immediately.
2206
2207 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2208
2209When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2210shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2211The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2212examining core files.
2213
2214 * set listsize
2215
2216You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2217The default is 10.
2218
2219 * New machines supported (host and target)
2220
2221SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2222Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2223Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2224
2225 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2226
2227IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2228
2229 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2230
2231AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2232AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2233Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2234
2235 * New remote interfaces
2236
2237AMD 29000 Adapt
2238AMD 29000 Minimon
2239
2240
2241*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2242
2243 * New Facilities
2244
2245Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2246
2247Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2248target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2249is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2250remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2251remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2252also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2253using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2254stub on the target system.
2255
2256New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2257
2258GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2259library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2260object file types such as a.out and coff.
2261
2262There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2263refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2264
2265
2266 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2267
2268All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2269by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2270
2271For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2272``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2273Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2274
2275What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2276print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2277will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2278all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2279
2280confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2281 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2282 it is already running. Default is ON.
2283
2284editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2285 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2286 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2287 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2288 Default is ON.
2289
2290history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2291 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2292 or the value of the environment variable
2293 GDBHISTFILE.
2294
2295history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2296 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2297 HISTSIZE.
2298
2299history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2300 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2301 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2302
2303history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2304 history expansion will be performed on
2305 command line input. The default is OFF.
2306
2307radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2308 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2309 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2310
2311height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2312 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2313 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2314 variable TERM.
2315
2316width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2317 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2318 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2319 variable TERM.
2320
2321Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2322``set width'' instead.
2323
2324print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2325 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2326 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2327 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2328
2329print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2330 is OFF.
2331
2332print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2333 "raw" form if off.
2334
2335print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2336 like instructions.
2337
2338print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2339
2340
2341 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2342
2343The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2344new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2345are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2346window.
2347
2348
2349 * Support for Shared Libraries
2350
2351GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2352Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2353before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2354happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2355At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2356from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2357shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2358It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2359
2360sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2361 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2362 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2363
2364info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2365
2366
2367 * Watchpoints
2368
2369A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2370expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2371tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2372quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2373problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2374more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2375
2376watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2377
2378info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2379
2380delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2381disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2382enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2383
2384
2385 * C++ multiple inheritance
2386
2387When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2388for C++ programs.
2389
2390 * C++ exception handling
2391
2392Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2393ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2394the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2395handler's context).
2396
2397catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2398 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2399 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2400
2401info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2402 current stack frame.
2403
2404
2405 * Minor command changes
2406
2407The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2408command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2409is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2410
2411The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2412at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2413frames without printing.
2414
2415 * New directory command
2416
2417'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2418The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2419about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2420with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2421find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2422
2423 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2424
2425For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2426for more details.
2427
2428GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2429two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2430Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2431where the program that you are debugging will run.