]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
2004-02-20 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
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6* Removed --with-mmalloc
7
8Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
9conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
10
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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
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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
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22support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
23from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
24(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 25
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26* New C++ demangler
27
28GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
29names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
30with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
31programs.
32
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33* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
34
35GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
36arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
37encountered these.
38
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39* New native configurations
40
41NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
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42OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
43OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 44
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45* New debugging protocols
46
47M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
48
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49* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
50
51The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
52and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
53tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
54
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55* OBSOLETE configurations and files
56
57Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
58been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
59configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
60permanently REMOVED.
61
62Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
63Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
64Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
65Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
66Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
67AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
68Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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69decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
70riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
71sonymips mips-sony-*
72sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 73
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74* REMOVED configurations and files
75
76SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
77SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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78Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
79Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
80H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
81HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
82HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
83HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
84PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
85Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
86 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
87 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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88SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
89SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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90Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
91Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 92
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93*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
94
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95* Objective-C
96
97Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
98integrated into GDB.
99
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100* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
101
102DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
103information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
104By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
105backtraces.
106
107The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
108have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
109DWARF 2 CFI support.
110
111* Hosted file I/O.
112
113GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
114file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
115remote protocol documentation for details.
116
117* All targets using the new architecture framework.
118
119All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
120architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
121to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
122ppc32 on ppc64).
123
124* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
125
126GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
127per-thread variables.
128
129* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
130
131GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
132GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
133
134* Separate debug info.
135
136GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
137automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
138of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
139system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
140and optional debug files.
141
142* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
143
144DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
145describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
146debugger.
147
148GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
149for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
150
151* Java
152
153A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
154Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
155considered "useable".
156
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157* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
158
159The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
160commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
161kernel.
162
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163* GDB supports logging output to a file
164
165There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
166used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 167
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168* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
169
170The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
171disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
172command.
173
e286caf2 174* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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175
176The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
177registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
178
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179* Profiling support
180
181A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
182be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
183session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
184"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
185data, for more informative profiling results.
186
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187* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
188
189The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
190option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 191"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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192
193Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
194removed.
195
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196Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
197Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
198Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
199 in a subsequent -var-update.
200
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201* New native configurations.
202
203FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
204
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205* Multi-arched targets.
206
b4263afa 207HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 208Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 209
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210* OBSOLETE configurations and files
211
212Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
213been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
214configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
215permanently REMOVED.
216
8b0e5691 217Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 218Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 219H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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220HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
221HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
222HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 223PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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224Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
225 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
226 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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227Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
228Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 229
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230* REMOVED configurations and files
231
232V850EA ISA
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233Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
234IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
235i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
236i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
237i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
238HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
239 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
240 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
241Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
242Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
243Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
244OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
245I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 246
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247* MIPS $fp behavior changed
248
249The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
250the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
251context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
252address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
253The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
254
299ffc64 255*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 256
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257* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
258
259When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
260`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
261in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
262library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
263shared libs like mad''.
264
b9d14705 265* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 266
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267Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
268the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
269arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
270powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 271
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272* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
273
274GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
275and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
276they expand.
277
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278The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
279invocations in expression, and shows the result.
280
281The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
282macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
283
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284Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
285information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
286your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
287information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
288
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289* Multi-arched targets.
290
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291DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
292DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 293NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 294National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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295Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
296Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 297
cd9bfe15 298* New targets.
e33ce519 299
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300Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
301
e33ce519 302
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303* New native configurations
304
305Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 306SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 307MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 308UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 309
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310* OBSOLETE configurations and files
311
312Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
313been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
314configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
315permanently REMOVED.
316
92eb23c5 317Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 318OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 319IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 320Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 321Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 322Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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323i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
324i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
325i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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326HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
327 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
328 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 329I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 330
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331* OBSOLETE languages
332
333CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
334
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335* REMOVED configurations and files
336
337AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
338A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
339AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
340AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
341AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
342
343testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
344
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345* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
346
347This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
348commands. The default is 1024.
349
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350* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
351
352Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
353
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354* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
355
356These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
357to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
358from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 359
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360* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
361
362The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
363including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
364of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
365
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366*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
367
368* New targets.
369
370Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
371
372* Bug fixes
373
374gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
375mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
376Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
377
378gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
379dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
380Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
381
382Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
383Surprisingly enough, it works now.
384By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
385
386i386 hardware watchpoint support:
387avoid misses on second run for some targets.
388By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
389
37057839 390*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 391
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392* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
393
394This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
395really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
396In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
397target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
398This can be a significant performance improvement on some
399(notably embedded) targets.
400
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401* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
402
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403This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
404process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
405GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
406hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 407
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408* New command line option
409
410GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
411
412* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
413
414There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
415command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
416a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
417be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
418open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
419issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
420a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
421it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
422GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
423is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
424
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425* Changes in ARM configurations.
426
427Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
428configuration is fully multi-arch.
429
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430* New native configurations
431
fe419ffc 432ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 433x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 434AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 435Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 436
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437* New targets
438
439Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
440
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441* OBSOLETE configurations and files
442
443Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
444been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
445configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
446permanently REMOVED.
447
448AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
449A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
450AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
451AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
452AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
453
b4ceaee6 454testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 455
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456* REMOVED configurations and files
457
458TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 459WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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460PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
461PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
462PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 463Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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464Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
465 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 466SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 467Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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468Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
469ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 470Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 471
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472* Changes to command line processing
473
474The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
475for the inferior from gdb's command line.
476
467d8519
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477* Changes to key bindings
478
479There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
480
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481*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
482
483Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
484
485Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
486corrupted.
487
488Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
489
490Numerous documentation fixes.
491
492Numerous testsuite fixes.
493
34f47bc4 494*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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495
496* New native configurations
497
498Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
499x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 500MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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501MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
502ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 503s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 504
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505* New targets
506
def90278 507Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 508CRIS cris-axis
55241689 509UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 510
17e78a56 511* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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512
513x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 514Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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515Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
516 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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517TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
518WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 519Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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520PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
521PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
522PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 523SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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524Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
525ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 526Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 527
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528stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
529kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
530
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531Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
532been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
533configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
534permanently REMOVED.
535
a196c81c 536* REMOVED configurations and files
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537
538Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
539Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
540Pyramid pyramid-*-*
541ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
542Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 543ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 544
6d6b80e5 545* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 546
6d6b80e5 547GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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548sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
549present.
550
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551* Other news:
552
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553* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
554
555* The MI enabled by default.
556
557The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
558revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
559engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
560using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
561which is now deprecated.
562
563* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
564
565GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
566main features are supported:
567
568 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
569
570 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
571 extension;
572
573 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
574
575 - a Pascal expression parser.
576
577However, some important features are not yet supported.
578
579 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
580
581 - there are some problems with boolean types;
582
583 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
584 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
585
586 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
587
588 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
589
590* Changes in completion.
591
592Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
593to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
594users expect at the shell prompt.
595
596Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
597`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
598program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
599files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
600be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
601considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
602name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
603
604`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
605
606* New platform-independent commands:
607
608It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
609hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
610documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
611
612* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
613
d7275149
MK
614Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
615revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
616many threads as your system allows you to have.
617
e23194cb
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618Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
619
d7275149
MK
620Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
621multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
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622
623* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
624
625Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
626
e23194cb
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627GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
628debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
629supported.)
630
631* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
632
633Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
634breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
635implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
636put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
637and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
638registers.
639
640The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
641debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
642watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
643
644* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
645
646New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
647the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
648
649New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
650display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
651IDT.
652
653New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
654from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
655New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
656a given linear address.
657
658GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
659program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
660which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
661
662DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
663
6c56c069
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664It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
665
e23194cb
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666* Changes in documentation.
667
668All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
669Documentation License.
670
671Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
672manual.
673
674TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
675
676Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
677manual.
678
679The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
680documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
681hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
682
5d6640b1
AC
683* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
684
685The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
686``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
687contents of this file.
688
1a1d8446
AC
689* gdba.el deleted
690
691GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 692
9debab2f 693*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 694
c63ce875
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695* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
696
697Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
698programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
699displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
700greater level of detail.
701
702* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
703
704It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
705bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
706on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
707written.
708
709* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
710
711The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
712necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
713machines ``out of the box''.
714
715The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
716possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
717signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
718would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
719interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
720
721It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
722standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
723even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
724and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
725terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
726
727The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
728enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
729also works.
730
731DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
732GDB.
733
734It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
735directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
736times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
737breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
738
ed9a39eb
JM
739* New native configurations
740
741ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 742PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 743
7a292a7a
SS
744* New targets
745
96baa820 746Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
747x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
748PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
749TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
750
085dd6e6
JM
751* OBSOLETE configurations
752
753Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
754Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 755Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 756ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 757Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 758
9debab2f
AC
759Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
760but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
761these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
762be permanently REMOVED.
763
5330533d
SS
764* Gould support removed
765
766Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
767
bc9e5bbf
AC
768* New features for SVR4
769
770On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
771without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
772load symbols from the running process's executable file.
773
774* Many C++ enhancements
775
776C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
777in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
778
adf40b2e
JM
779* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
780
781A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
782sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
783with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
784``|<program> <args>'' vis:
785
786 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
787 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
788
43e526b9
JM
789* MIPS 64 remote protocol
790
791A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
792expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
793instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
794
795The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
796added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
797
96baa820
JM
798* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
799
800The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
801``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
802include ``set remote P-packet''.
803
11cf8741
JM
804* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
805
806The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
807accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
808``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
809
7876dd43
DB
810* ``apropos'' command added.
811
812The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
813documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
814try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
815
bc9e5bbf
AC
816* New MI interface
817
818A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
819interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
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820process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
821"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
822enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
823
824 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
825
c906108c
SS
826*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
827
828* New native configurations
829
830HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
831HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 832M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
833
834* New targets
835
836Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
837Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
838Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
839
840* OBSOLETE configurations
841
842Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
843
844Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
845but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
846these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
847be permanently REMOVED.
848
849* ANSI/ISO C
850
851As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
852buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
853containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
854use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
855available. If this is not true, please report the affected
856configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
857information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
858already.
859
860* Readline 2.2
861
862GDB now uses readline 2.2.
863
864* set extension-language
865
866You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
867languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
868you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
869 set extension-language .c c++
870The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
871and their associated languages.
872
873* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
874
875When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
876you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
877PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
878
879 set processor NAME
880
881sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
882following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
883
884 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
885 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
886 403 IBM PowerPC 403
887 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
888 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
889 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
890 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
891 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
892 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
893 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
894 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
895
896At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
897special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
898registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
899only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
900
901* HP-UX support
902
903Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
904more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
905library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
906support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
907for xdb and dbx commands.
908
909* Catchpoints
910
911HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
912generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
913to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
914
915This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
916argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
917output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
918
919* Debugging across forks
920
921On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
922in the inferior.
923
924* TUI
925
926HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
927it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
928configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
929
930* GDB remote protocol additions
931
932A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
933Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
934fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
935allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
936
937For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
938full 64-bit address. The command
939
940 set remoteaddresssize 32
941
942can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
943the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
944will be discarded.
945
946In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
947command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
948
949 maint packet heythere
950
951sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
952disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
953time.
954
955The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
956target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
957downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
958
959* Tracing can collect general expressions
960
961You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
962further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
963doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
964
965* mask-address variable for Mips
966
967For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
968a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
969of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
970
971* Higher serial baud rates
972
973GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
974230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
975to achieve all of these rates.)
976
977* i960 simulator
978
979The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
980builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
981
982
983*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
984
985* New native configurations
986
987Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
988Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
989Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
990PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
991PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
992Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
993Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
994
995* New targets
996
997Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
998Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
999Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1000Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1001MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1002MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1003MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1004Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1005Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1006Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1007NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1008
1009* New debugging protocols
1010
1011ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1012M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1013DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1014PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1015PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1016Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1017
1018* DWARF 2
1019
1020All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1021format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1022information.
1023
1024* Java frontend
1025
1026GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1027only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1028
1029* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1030
1031For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1032loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1033locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1034
1035* Live range splitting
1036
1037GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1038range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1039more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1040
1041* Hurd support
1042
1043GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1044updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1045
1046* ARM Thumb support
1047
1048GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1049instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1050instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1051accordingly.
1052
1053* MIPS16 support
1054
1055GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1056instruction set.
1057
1058* Overlay support
1059
1060GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1061linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1062will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1063control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1064additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1065in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1066
1067* info symbol
1068
1069The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1070the symbol at the specified address.
1071
1072* Trace support
1073
1074The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1075asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1076extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1077includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1078file tracepoint.c for more details.
1079
1080* MIPS simulator
1081
1082Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1083by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1084of most MIPS variants.
1085
1086* Sparc simulator
1087
1088Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1089by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1090Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1091
1092* set architecture
1093
1094For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1095basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1096architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1097the possible architectures.
1098
1099*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1100
1101* New native configurations
1102
1103Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1104M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1105PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1106PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1107PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1108RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1109
1110* New targets
1111
1112ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1113I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1114MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1115MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1116PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1117Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1118Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1119
1120* PowerPC simulator
1121
1122The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1123contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1124PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1125basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1126performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1127
1128* Solaris 2.5
1129
1130GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1131
1132* Windows 95/NT native
1133
1134GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1135To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1136which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1137Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1138ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1139
1140* dont-repeat command
1141
1142If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1143command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1144useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1145extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1146
1147* Send break instead of ^C
1148
1149The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1150rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1151GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1152
1153* Remote protocol timeout
1154
1155The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1156that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1157to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1158
1159* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1160
1161By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1162loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1163stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1164when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1165in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1166
1167Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1168/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1169automatically on hpux10.
1170
1171* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1172
1173Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1174
1175* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1176
1177When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1178may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1179the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1180every character. The default value is 1050.
1181
1182* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1183
1184If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1185a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1186replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1187details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1188remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1189to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1190
1191* Speedups for remote debugging
1192
1193GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1194the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1195and more efficient S-record downloading.
1196
1197* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1198
1199GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1200Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1201
1202*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1203
1204* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1205
1206The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1207can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1208
1209* Remote targets use caching
1210
1211Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1212remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1213it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1214debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1215off' turns the the data cache off.
1216
1217* Remote targets may have threads
1218
1219The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1220in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1221gdb/remote.c for details.
1222
1223* NetROM support
1224
1225If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1226support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1227acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1228write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1229support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1230another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1231sequence is something like
1232
1233 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1234 load <prog>
1235 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1236
1237* Macintosh host
1238
1239GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1240may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1241it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1242available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1243device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1244directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1245scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1246mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1247
1248* Autoconf
1249
1250GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1251but does simplify configuration and building.
1252
1253* hpux10
1254
1255GDB now supports hpux10.
1256
1257*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1258
1259* New native configurations
1260
1261x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1262x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1263NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1264Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1265
1266* New targets
1267
1268A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1269HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1270CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1271PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1272WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1273
1274* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1275
1276GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1277possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1278filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1279the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1280if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1281
1282* Arguments to user-defined commands
1283
1284User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1285Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1286trivial example:
1287define adder
1288 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1289
1290To execute the command use:
1291adder 1 2 3
1292
1293Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1294Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1295use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1296
1297* New `if' and `while' commands
1298
1299This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1300commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1301expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1302execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1303terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1304`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1305if the expression is zero.
1306
1307* Fortran source language mode
1308
1309GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1310Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1311variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1312with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1313Fortran compilers.
1314
1315* Better HPUX support
1316
1317Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1318running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1319processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1320for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1321that behavior do the following before running the program:
1322
1323 adb -w a.out
1324 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1325 control-d
1326
1327This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1328To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1329
1330 adb -w a.out
1331 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1332 control-d
1333
1334You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1335the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1336external linkage.
1337
1338GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1339HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1340
1341* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1342
1343You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1344commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1345current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1346"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1347associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1348configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1349
1350* New DOS host serial code
1351
1352This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1353no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1354a PC's serial port.
1355
1356*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1357
1358* New "complete" command
1359
1360This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1361were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1362
1363* Trailing space optional in prompt
1364
1365"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1366allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1367
1368* Breakpoint hit counts
1369
1370"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1371has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1372can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1373to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1374less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1375that breakpoint.
1376
1377* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1378
1379"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1380an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1381arrays actually contain only short strings.
1382
1383* Shared library breakpoints
1384
1385In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1386breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1387
1388* Hardware watchpoints
1389
1390There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1391targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1392
55241689 1393Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1394
1395* Annotations
1396
1397Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1398and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1399
1400* Improved Irix 5 support
1401
1402GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1403
1404* Improved HPPA support
1405
1406GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1407
1408* New native configurations
1409
1410Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1411HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1412Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1413RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1414
1415* New targets
1416
1417OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1418MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1419Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1420
1421* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1422
1423There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1424This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1425
1426* Fixes
1427
1428As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1429and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1430
1431*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1432
1433* Irix 5 is now supported
1434
1435* HPPA support
1436
1437GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1438to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1439GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1440of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1441can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1442
1443
1444*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1445
1446* User visible changes:
1447
1448* Remote Debugging
1449
1450The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1451target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1452debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1453integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1454debugging info for the mips target).
1455
1456* DEC Alpha native support
1457
1458GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1459debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1460work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1461Alpha-specific notes.
1462
1463* Preliminary thread implementation
1464
1465GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1466
1467* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1468
1469This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1470to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1471for details).
1472
1473* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1474
1475This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1476mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1477call methods, ...etc.
1478
1479*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1480
1481 * User visible changes:
1482
1483Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1484supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1485other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1486somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1487
1488Filename completion now works.
1489
1490When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1491arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1492addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1493
1494All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1495vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1496should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1497your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1498to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1499
1500 * DEC alpha support
1501
1502This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1503cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1504
1505
1506*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1507
1508 * Testsuite
1509
1510This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1511The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1512via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1513
1514 * C++ demangling
1515
1516'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1517emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1518Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1519disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1520use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1521
1522 * Simulators
1523
1524GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1525So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1526Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1527
1528 * New targets supported
1529
1530H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1531H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1532SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1533Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1534IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1535
1536Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1537version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1538GO32 memory extender.
1539
1540 * New remote protocols
1541
1542MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1543
1544 * New source languages supported
1545
1546This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1547used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1548into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1549
1550
1551*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1552
1553 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1554
1555GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1556version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1557University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1558compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1559format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1560(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1561
1562Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1563
1564 * Faster and better demangling
1565
1566We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1567demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1568character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1569only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1570This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1571increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1572symbol lookups.
1573
1574`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1575from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1576compiler does not actually implement.
1577
1578 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1579
1580In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1581inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1582recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1583very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1584The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1585circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1586fix.
1587
1588The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1589release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1590
1591 * Improved configure script
1592
1593The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1594you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1595host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1596done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1597
1598We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1599version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1600`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1601The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1602only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1603We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1604
1605 * Documentation improvements
1606
1607There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1608produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1609before submitting changes.
1610
1611The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1612M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1613`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1614you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1615a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1616
1617*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1618We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1619been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1620or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1621`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1622around this problem.
1623
1624 * New features
1625
1626GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1627the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1628`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1629the target program.
1630
1631The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1632how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1633
1634 * New native hosts supported
1635
1636HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1637386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1638
1639 * New targets supported
1640
1641AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1642
1643 * New file formats supported
1644
1645BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1646HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1647
1648 * Major bug fixes
1649
1650Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1651
1652We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1653printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1654
1655We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1656for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1657release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1658
1659You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1660will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1661
1662We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1663for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1664especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1665libraries.
1666
1667The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1668information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1669command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1670any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1671when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1672
1673 * Internal improvements
1674
1675GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1676debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1677
1678GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1679Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1680symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1681contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1682shared code that handles any of them.
1683
1684 * New command line options
1685
1686We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1687
1688 * Mmalloc licensing
1689
1690The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1691General Public License.
1692
1693*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1694
1695 * Host/native/target split
1696
1697GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1698hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1699target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1700local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1701ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1702
1703The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1704GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1705is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1706code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1707any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1708built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1709handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1710
1711GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1712It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1713plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1714
1715 * New hosts supported
1716
1717HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1718386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1719386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1720
1721 * New targets supported
1722
1723Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
172468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1725
1726 * New native hosts supported
1727
1728386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1729 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1730386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1731
1732 * New file formats supported
1733
1734BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1735supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1736format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1737
1738 * New commands
1739
1740`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1741`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1742These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1743
1744`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1745
1746You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1747scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1748prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1749executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1750
1751 * C++ improvements
1752
1753We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1754info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1755symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1756
1757Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1758
1759 * Major bug fixes
1760
1761The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1762fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1763by the compiler.
1764
1765We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1766support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1767
1768John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1769slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1770that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1771purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1772the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1773mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1774
1775Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1776about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1777completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1778we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1779
1780 * AMD 29k support
1781
1782A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1783specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1784calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1785usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1786in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1787
1788We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1789Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1790of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1791resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1792
1793 * Remote interfaces
1794
1795We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1796with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1797message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1798This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1799needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1800breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1801each instruction being stepped through.
1802
1803The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1804registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1805
1806There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1807find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1808Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1809processor with a serial port.
1810
1811 * Configuration
1812
1813Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1814`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1815supported, and what files each one uses.
1816
1817 * Library changes
1818
1819There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1820disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1821Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1822disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1823
1824The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1825Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1826can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1827grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1828
1829 * Documentation
1830
1831The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1832reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1833as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1834encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1835system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1836bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1837
1838And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1839
1840
1841*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1842
1843 * Better support for C++ function names
1844
1845GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1846names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1847(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1848single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1849Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1850
1851GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1852the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1853You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1854lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1855for the list of formats.
1856
1857 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1858
1859Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1860C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1861directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1862can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1863usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1864about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1865this problem.)
1866
1867 * New 'maintenance' command
1868
1869All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1870the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1871can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1872
1873 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1874 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1875 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1876 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1877 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1878 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1879
1880The following commands are new:
1881
1882 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1883 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1884 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1885
1886 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1887
1888We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1889(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1890be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1891read after argv processing.
1892
1893 * New hosts supported
1894
1895Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1896
55241689 1897GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1898
1899We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1900is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1901for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1902masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1903fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1904It costs extra.
1905
1906 * New targets supported
1907
1908Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1909
1910 * More smarts about finding #include files
1911
1912GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1913all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1914greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1915especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1916the one that contains your sources.
1917
1918We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1919breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1920try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1921
1922 * Interesting infernals change
1923
1924GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1925section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1926target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1927stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1928
1929 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1930
1931There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1932 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1933 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1934
1935See the ChangeLog for details.
1936
1937*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1938
1939 * New machines supported (host and target)
1940
1941IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1942
1943SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1944
1945 * New malloc package
1946
1947GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1948Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1949capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1950This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1951pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1952more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1953
1954 * info proc
1955
1956The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1957'help info proc' for details.
1958
1959 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1960
1961The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1962Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1963possible.
1964
1965 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1966
1967Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1968support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1969conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1970environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1971that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1972in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1973
1974 * Cross byte order fixes
1975
1976Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1977targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1978
1979 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1980
1981If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1982system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1983`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1984program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1985called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1986Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1987and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1988the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1989option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1990starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1991
1992You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1993the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1994information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1995slower, but makes future operations faster.
1996
1997The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1998build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1999A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2000use is:
2001
2002 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2003
2004The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2005It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2006shared across multiple host platforms.
2007
2008 * longjmp() handling
2009
2010GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2011siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2012all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2013platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2014
2015 * Solaris 2.0
2016
2017Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2018this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2019reading symbols.
2020
2021 * Bug fixes
2022
2023As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2024People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2025crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2026
2027*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2028
2029 * New machines supported (host and target)
2030
2031SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2032 (except core files)
2033BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2034Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2035
2036 * New machines supported (target)
2037
2038AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2039
2040 * C++ support
2041
2042GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2043The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2044per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2045
2046GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2047`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2048extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2049good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2050will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2051released.
2052
2053 * New features for SVR4
2054
2055GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2056shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2057only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2058
2059The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2060on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2061it prints the address mappings of the process.
2062
2063If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2064bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2065
2066 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2067
2068Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2069now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2070skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2071make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2072same code linked statically.
2073
2074 * New Getopt
2075
2076GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2077version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2078continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2079Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2080added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2081future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2082
2083 * Bugs fixed
2084
2085The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2086Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2087See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2088
2089
2090*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2091
2092 * New machines supported (host and target)
2093
2094Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2095NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2096Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2097
2098 * Almost SCO Unix support
2099
2100We had hoped to support:
2101SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2102(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2103that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2104about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2105
2106 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2107
2108GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2109debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2110is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2111send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2112reqired (if any).
2113
2114 * New Readline
2115
2116GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2117is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2118required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2119
2120 * Bugs fixed
2121
2122The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2123Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2124See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2125
2126 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2127
2128GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2129supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2130symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2131
2132Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2133mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2134debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2135mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2136version 2.
2137
2138Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2139really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2140line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2141variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2142situation somewhat.
2143
2144When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2145However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2146methods.
2147
2148We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2149DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2150encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2151
2152
2153*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2154
2155 * Improved configuration
2156
2157Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2158Porting BFD is simpler.
2159
2160 * Stepping improved
2161
2162The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2163of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2164in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2165function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2166
2167 * Bug fixing
2168
2169Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2170
2171 * New host supported (not target)
2172
2173Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2174
2175
2176*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2177
2178 * Multiple source language support
2179
2180GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2181It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2182and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2183language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2184You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2185`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2186
2187 * GDB and Modula-2
2188
2189GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2190currently under development at the State University of New York at
2191Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2192continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2193
2194Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2195debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2196symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2197
2198There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2199in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2200
2201 * set write on/off
2202
2203GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2204a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2205the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2206by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2207effect immediately.
2208
2209 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2210
2211When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2212shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2213The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2214examining core files.
2215
2216 * set listsize
2217
2218You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2219The default is 10.
2220
2221 * New machines supported (host and target)
2222
2223SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2224Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2225Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2226
2227 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2228
2229IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2230
2231 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2232
2233AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2234AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2235Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2236
2237 * New remote interfaces
2238
2239AMD 29000 Adapt
2240AMD 29000 Minimon
2241
2242
2243*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2244
2245 * New Facilities
2246
2247Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2248
2249Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2250target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2251is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2252remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2253remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2254also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2255using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2256stub on the target system.
2257
2258New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2259
2260GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2261library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2262object file types such as a.out and coff.
2263
2264There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2265refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2266
2267
2268 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2269
2270All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2271by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2272
2273For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2274``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2275Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2276
2277What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2278print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2279will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2280all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2281
2282confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2283 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2284 it is already running. Default is ON.
2285
2286editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2287 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2288 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2289 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2290 Default is ON.
2291
2292history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2293 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2294 or the value of the environment variable
2295 GDBHISTFILE.
2296
2297history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2298 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2299 HISTSIZE.
2300
2301history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2302 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2303 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2304
2305history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2306 history expansion will be performed on
2307 command line input. The default is OFF.
2308
2309radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2310 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2311 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2312
2313height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2314 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2315 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2316 variable TERM.
2317
2318width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2319 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2320 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2321 variable TERM.
2322
2323Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2324``set width'' instead.
2325
2326print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2327 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2328 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2329 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2330
2331print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2332 is OFF.
2333
2334print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2335 "raw" form if off.
2336
2337print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2338 like instructions.
2339
2340print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2341
2342
2343 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2344
2345The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2346new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2347are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2348window.
2349
2350
2351 * Support for Shared Libraries
2352
2353GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2354Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2355before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2356happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2357At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2358from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2359shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2360It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2361
2362sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2363 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2364 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2365
2366info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2367
2368
2369 * Watchpoints
2370
2371A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2372expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2373tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2374quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2375problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2376more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2377
2378watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2379
2380info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2381
2382delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2383disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2384enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2385
2386
2387 * C++ multiple inheritance
2388
2389When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2390for C++ programs.
2391
2392 * C++ exception handling
2393
2394Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2395ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2396the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2397handler's context).
2398
2399catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2400 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2401 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2402
2403info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2404 current stack frame.
2405
2406
2407 * Minor command changes
2408
2409The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2410command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2411is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2412
2413The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2414at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2415frames without printing.
2416
2417 * New directory command
2418
2419'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2420The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2421about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2422with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2423find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2424
2425 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2426
2427For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2428for more details.
2429
2430GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2431two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2432Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2433where the program that you are debugging will run.