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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
6* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
8
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9* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1032-bit or 64-bit register values.
11
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12* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
13
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14* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
17
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18* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
19 of numbers.
20
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21* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
22for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
23only ARM).
24
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25* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
26iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 27
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28* New commands
29
30set mem inaccessible-by-default
31show mem inaccessible-by-default
32 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
33 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
34 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
35 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
36 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
37
38set breakpoint auto-hw
39show breakpoint auto-hw
40 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
41 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
42 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
43 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
44 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
45 including "next" and "finish".
46
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47catch exception
48catch exception unhandled
49 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
50
51catch assert
52 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
53
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54set sysroot
55show sysroot
56 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
57 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
58 an alias to "set sysroot".
59
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60* New native configurations
61
62OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
63
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64set tdesc filename
65unset tdesc filename
66show tdesc filename
67 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
68 not query the target for its built-in description.
69
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70* New targets
71
54fe9172 72OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 73MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 74Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 75
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76* New remote packets
77
78QPassSignals:
79 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
80 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
81
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82qXfer:features:read:
83 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
84 features.
6dd09645 85
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86* Removed targets
87
88Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
89
7ce59000 90d10v-*-*
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91hppa*-*-hiux*
92i[34567]86-ncr-*
93i[34567]86-*-dgux*
94i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
95i[34567]86-*-netware*
96i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
97i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
98i[34567]86-*-sco*
99i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
100i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
101i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
102i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
103i[34567]86-*-unixware*
104i[34567]86-*-sysv*
105i[34567]86-*-isc*
106m68*-cisco*-*
107m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 108mips*-*-pe
483367ee 109rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 110sh*-*-pe
483367ee 111
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112* Other removed features
113
114target abug
115target cpu32bug
116target est
117target rom68k
118
119 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
120
121DWARF 1 support
122
123 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
124 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
125
6dd09645 126*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 127
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128* New targets
129
130Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 131Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 132
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133* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
134(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
135running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
136
137* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
138Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
139supported.
140
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141* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
142broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
143
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144* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
145stub provides the required support.
146
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147* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
148longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
149
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150* New commands
151
152set substitute-path
153unset substitute-path
154show substitute-path
155 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
156 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
157 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
158 between compilation and debugging.
159
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160set trace-commands
161show trace-commands
162 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
163 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
164 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
165
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166* REMOVED features
167
168The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
169
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170Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
171an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
172
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173The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
174
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175* New remote packets
176
177qSupported:
178 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
179 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
180 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
181 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
182 target.
183
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184qXfer:auxv:read:
185 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
186 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
187
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188qXfer:memory-map:read:
189 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
190 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
191
192vFlashErase:
193vFlashWrite:
194vFlashDone:
195 Erase and program a flash memory device.
196
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197* Removed remote packets
198
199qPart:auxv:read:
200 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
201 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
202
e374b601 203*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 204
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205* New targets
206
207Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
208
209Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
210
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211* New commands
212
213init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
214 only if it doesn't already have a value.
215
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216The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
217
218checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
219
220restart <n> Return the program state to a
221 previously saved state.
222
223info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
224
225delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
226
227set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
228 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
229
230info forks List forks of the user program that
231 are available to be debugged.
232
233fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
234 forks of the user program that are
235 available to be debugged.
236
237delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
238 that are available to be debugged (and
239 kill the forked process).
240
241detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
242 that are available to be debugged (and
243 allow the process to continue).
244
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245* New architecture
246
247Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
248
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249* Improved Windows host support
250
251GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
252native console support, and remote communications using either
253network sockets or serial ports.
254
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255* Improved Modula-2 language support
256
257GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
258basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
259pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
260printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
261written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
262GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
263
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264* REMOVED features
265
266The ARM rdi-share module.
267
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268The Netware NLM debug server.
269
53e5f3cf 270*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 271
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272* New native configurations
273
02a677ac 274OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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275OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
276
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277* New targets
278
279Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
280
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281* New command line options
282
283--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
284--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
285 the child (debugged) program exited with.
286--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
287 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
288 specified multiple times and in conjunction
289 with the --command (-x) option.
290
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291* Deprecated commands removed
292
293The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
294removed:
295
296 Command Replacement
297 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
298 othernames set arm disassembler
299 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
300 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
301 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
302 regs info registers
303
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304* New BSD user-level threads support
305
306It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
307library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
308configurations are:
309
310FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
311FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
312OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
313
314Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
315are not yet supported.
316
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317* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
318(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
319
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320* REMOVED configurations and files
321
322VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 323Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 324National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 325
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326* New "set print array-indexes" command
327
328After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
329when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
330behavior.
331
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332* VAX floating point support
333
334GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
335
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336* User-defined command support
337
338In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
339to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
340section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
341
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342*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
343
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344* New command line option
345
346GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
347debugging.
348
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349* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
350
351GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
352information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
353by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
354proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
355to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 356
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357* Internationalization
358
359When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
360internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
361continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
362
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363* Ada
364
365Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
366implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
367into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
368
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369* New native configurations
370
371GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
372
373* Remote 'p' packet
374
375GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
376packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
377
378* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
379
380GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
381The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
382features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
383i386 application).
384
385GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
386compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
387continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
388configurations:
389
390hppa-*-hpux
391ia64-*-aix
392mips-*-irix*
393*-*-lynx
394mips-*-linux-gnu
395sds protocol
396xdr protocol
397powerpc bdm protocol
398
399Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
400made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
401
402* OBSOLETE configurations and files
403
404Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
405been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
406configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
407permanently REMOVED.
408
409h8300-*-*
410mcore-*-*
411mn10300-*-*
412ns32k-*-*
413sh64-*-*
414v850-*-*
415
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416*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
417
418* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
419
420When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
421heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
422been fixed.
423
424* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
425
426When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
427fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
428IRIX long double values).
429
430* VAX and "next"
431
432A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
433command. This problem has been fixed.
434
860660cb 435*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 436
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437* Fix for ``many threads''
438
439On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
440rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
441error message:
442
443 ptrace: No such process.
444 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
445
446This problem has been fixed.
447
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448* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
449
450Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
451GDB to dump core).
452
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453* New ``start'' command.
454
455This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
456
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457* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
458
459Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
460live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
461platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
462
463FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
464FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
465NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
466NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
467NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
468OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
469OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
470OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
471OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
472
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473* Signal trampoline code overhauled
474
475Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
476These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
477of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
478call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
479signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
480
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481Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
482features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
483include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 484
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485* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
486
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487* New native configurations
488
97dc871c 489GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 490OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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491OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
492OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 493OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 494NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 495OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 496
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497* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
498
499GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
500The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
501including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
502migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
503compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
504work, was also included.
505
506GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
507module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
508
509h8300-*-*
510mcore-*-*
511mn10300-*-*
512ns32k-*-*
513sh64-*-*
514v850-*-*
515xstormy16-*-*
516
517Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
518made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
519
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520* REMOVED configurations and files
521
522Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
523Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
524Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
525Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
526Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
527AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
528Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
529decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
530riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
531sonymips mips-sony-*
532sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
533
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534*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
535
536* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
537
538The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
539GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
540command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
541program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
542with GDB".
543
544* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
545
546Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
547libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
548cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
549GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
550shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
551the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
552are created.
553
554Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
555
556* Fixed ISO-C build problems
557
558The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
559non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
560compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
561
562* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
563
564Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
565wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
566
567* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
568
569The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
570permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
571systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
572
573* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
574
575Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
576has been updated to use constant array sizes.
577
578* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
579
580GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
581its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
582panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
583
584* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
585
586When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
587by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
588not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
589
faae5abe 590*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 591
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592* Removed --with-mmalloc
593
594Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
595conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
596
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597* Changes in AMD64 configurations
598
599The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
600the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
601and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
602you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
603
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604* Revised SPARC target
605
606The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
607FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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608support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
609from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
610(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 611
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612* New C++ demangler
613
614GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
615names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
616with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
617programs.
618
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619* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
620
621GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
622arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
623encountered these.
624
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625* C++ nested types and namespaces
626
627GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
628improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
629is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
630Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
631namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
632"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
633frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
634if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
635GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
636
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637* New native configurations
638
639NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 640OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 641OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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642OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
643OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 644
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645* New debugging protocols
646
647M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
648
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649* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
650
651The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
652and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
653tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
654
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655* OBSOLETE configurations and files
656
657Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
658been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
659configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
660permanently REMOVED.
661
662Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
663Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
664Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
665Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
666Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
667AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
668Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
669decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
670riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
671sonymips mips-sony-*
672sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 673
0ddabb4c
AC
674* REMOVED configurations and files
675
676SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
677SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
678Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
679Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
680H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
681HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
682HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
683HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
684PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 685386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
686Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
687 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
688 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
689SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
690SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
691Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
692Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 693
c7f1390e
DJ
694*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
695
1fe43d45
AC
696* Objective-C
697
698Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
699integrated into GDB.
700
e6beb428
AC
701* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
702
703DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
704information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
705By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
706backtraces.
707
708The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
709have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
710DWARF 2 CFI support.
711
712* Hosted file I/O.
713
714GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
715file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
716remote protocol documentation for details.
717
718* All targets using the new architecture framework.
719
720All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
721architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
722to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
723ppc32 on ppc64).
724
725* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
726
727GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
728per-thread variables.
729
730* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
731
732GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
733GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
734
735* Separate debug info.
736
737GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
738automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
739of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
740system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
741and optional debug files.
742
743* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
744
745DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
746describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
747debugger.
748
749GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
750for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
751
752* Java
753
754A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
755Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
756considered "useable".
757
85f8f974
DJ
758* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
759
760The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
761commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
762kernel.
763
0fac0b41
DJ
764* GDB supports logging output to a file
765
766There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
767used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 768
6ad8ae5c
DJ
769* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
770
771The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
772disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
773command.
774
e286caf2 775* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
776
777The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
778registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
779
d28f9cdf
DJ
780* Profiling support
781
782A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
783be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
784session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
785"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
786data, for more informative profiling results.
787
da0f9dcd
AC
788* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
789
790The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
791option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 792"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
793
794Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
795removed.
796
fb9b6b35
JJ
797Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
798Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
799Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
800 in a subsequent -var-update.
801
954a4db8
MK
802* New native configurations.
803
804FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
805
6760f9e6
JB
806* Multi-arched targets.
807
b4263afa 808HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 809Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 810
1b831c93
AC
811* OBSOLETE configurations and files
812
813Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
814been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
815configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
816permanently REMOVED.
817
8b0e5691 818Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 819Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 820H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
821HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
822HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
823HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 824PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
825Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
826 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
827 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
828Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
829Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 830
5835abe7
NC
831* REMOVED configurations and files
832
833V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
834Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
835IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
836i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
837i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
838i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
839HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
840 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
841 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
842Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
843Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
844Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
845OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
846I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 847
a094c6fb
AC
848* MIPS $fp behavior changed
849
850The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
851the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
852context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
853address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
854The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
855
299ffc64 856*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 857
46248966
AC
858* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
859
860When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
861`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
862in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
863library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
864shared libs like mad''.
865
b9d14705 866* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 867
b9d14705
DJ
868Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
869the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
870arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
871powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 872
e0e9281e
JB
873* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
874
875GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
876and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
877they expand.
878
dd73b9bb
AC
879The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
880invocations in expression, and shows the result.
881
882The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
883macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
884
e0e9281e
JB
885Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
886information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
887your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
888information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
889
2250ee0c
CV
890* Multi-arched targets.
891
6e3ba3b8
JT
892DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
893DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 894NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 895National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
896Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
897Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 898
cd9bfe15 899* New targets.
e33ce519 900
456f8b9d
DB
901Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
902
e33ce519 903
da8ca43d
JT
904* New native configurations
905
906Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 907SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 908MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 909UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 910
cd9bfe15
AC
911* OBSOLETE configurations and files
912
913Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
914been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
915configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
916permanently REMOVED.
917
92eb23c5 918Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 919OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 920IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 921Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 922Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 923Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
924i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
925i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
926i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
927HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
928 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
929 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 930I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 931
db034ac5
AC
932* OBSOLETE languages
933
934CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
935
cd9bfe15
AC
936* REMOVED configurations and files
937
938AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
939A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
940AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
941AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
942AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
943
944testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
945
20f01a46
DH
946* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
947
948This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
949commands. The default is 1024.
950
a5941fbf
MK
951* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
952
953Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
954
89743e04
MS
955* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
956
957These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
958to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
959from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 960
9fb14e79
JB
961* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
962
963The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
964including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
965of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
966
2037aebb
AC
967*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
968
969* New targets.
970
971Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
972
973* Bug fixes
974
975gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
976mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
977Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
978
979gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
980dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
981Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
982
983Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
984Surprisingly enough, it works now.
985By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
986
987i386 hardware watchpoint support:
988avoid misses on second run for some targets.
989By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
990
37057839 991*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 992
1a703748
MS
993* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
994
995This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
996really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
997In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
998target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
999This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1000(notably embedded) targets.
1001
cefd4ef5
MS
1002* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1003
55241689
AC
1004This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1005process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1006GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1007hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1008
352ed7b4
MS
1009* New command line option
1010
1011GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1012
1013* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1014
1015There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1016command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1017a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1018be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1019open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1020issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1021a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1022it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1023GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1024is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1025
fe419ffc
RE
1026* Changes in ARM configurations.
1027
1028Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1029configuration is fully multi-arch.
1030
eb7cedd9
MK
1031* New native configurations
1032
fe419ffc 1033ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1034x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1035AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1036Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1037
c9f63e6b
CV
1038* New targets
1039
1040Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1041
9b4ff276
AC
1042* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1043
1044Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1045been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1046configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1047permanently REMOVED.
1048
1049AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1050A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1051AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1052AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1053AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1054
b4ceaee6 1055testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1056
e2caac18
AC
1057* REMOVED configurations and files
1058
1059TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1060WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1061PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1062PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1063PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1064Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1065Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1066 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1067SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1068Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1069Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1070ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1071Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1072
c2a727fa
TT
1073* Changes to command line processing
1074
1075The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1076for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1077
467d8519
TT
1078* Changes to key bindings
1079
1080There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1081
7072a954
AC
1082*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1083
1084Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1085
1086Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1087corrupted.
1088
1089Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1090
1091Numerous documentation fixes.
1092
1093Numerous testsuite fixes.
1094
34f47bc4 1095*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1096
1097* New native configurations
1098
1099Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1100x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1101MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1102MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1103ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1104s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1105
bf64bfd6
AC
1106* New targets
1107
def90278 1108Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1109CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1110UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1111
17e78a56 1112* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1113
1114x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1115Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1116Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1117 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1118TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1119WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1120Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1121PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1122PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1123PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1124SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1125Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1126ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1127Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1128
17e78a56
AC
1129stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1130kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1131
7fcca85b
AC
1132Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1133been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1134configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1135permanently REMOVED.
1136
a196c81c 1137* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1138
1139Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1140Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1141Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1142ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1143Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1144ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1145
6d6b80e5 1146* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1147
6d6b80e5 1148GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1149sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1150present.
1151
bf64bfd6
AC
1152* Other news:
1153
e23194cb
EZ
1154* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1155
1156* The MI enabled by default.
1157
1158The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1159revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1160engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1161using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1162which is now deprecated.
1163
1164* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1165
1166GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1167main features are supported:
1168
1169 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1170
1171 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1172 extension;
1173
1174 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1175
1176 - a Pascal expression parser.
1177
1178However, some important features are not yet supported.
1179
1180 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1181
1182 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1183
1184 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1185 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1186
1187 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1188
1189 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1190
1191* Changes in completion.
1192
1193Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1194to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1195users expect at the shell prompt.
1196
1197Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1198`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1199program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1200files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1201be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1202considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1203name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1204
1205`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1206
1207* New platform-independent commands:
1208
1209It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1210hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1211documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1212
1213* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1214
d7275149
MK
1215Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1216revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1217many threads as your system allows you to have.
1218
e23194cb
EZ
1219Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1220
d7275149
MK
1221Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1222multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1223
1224* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1225
1226Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1227
e23194cb
EZ
1228GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1229debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1230supported.)
1231
1232* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1233
1234Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1235breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1236implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1237put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1238and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1239registers.
1240
1241The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1242debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1243watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1244
1245* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1246
1247New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1248the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1249
1250New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1251display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1252IDT.
1253
1254New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1255from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1256New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1257a given linear address.
1258
1259GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1260program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1261which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1262
1263DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1264
6c56c069
EZ
1265It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1266
e23194cb
EZ
1267* Changes in documentation.
1268
1269All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1270Documentation License.
1271
1272Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1273manual.
1274
1275TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1276
1277Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1278manual.
1279
1280The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1281documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1282hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1283
5d6640b1
AC
1284* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1285
1286The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1287``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1288contents of this file.
1289
1a1d8446
AC
1290* gdba.el deleted
1291
1292GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1293
9debab2f 1294*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1295
c63ce875
EZ
1296* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1297
1298Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1299programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1300displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1301greater level of detail.
1302
1303* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1304
1305It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1306bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1307on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1308written.
1309
1310* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1311
1312The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1313necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1314machines ``out of the box''.
1315
1316The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1317possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1318signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1319would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1320interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1321
1322It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1323standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1324even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1325and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1326terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1327
1328The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1329enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1330also works.
1331
1332DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1333GDB.
1334
1335It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1336directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1337times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1338breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1339
ed9a39eb
JM
1340* New native configurations
1341
1342ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1343PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1344
7a292a7a
SS
1345* New targets
1346
96baa820 1347Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1348x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1349PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1350TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1351
085dd6e6
JM
1352* OBSOLETE configurations
1353
1354Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1355Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1356Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1357ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1358Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1359
9debab2f
AC
1360Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1361but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1362these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1363be permanently REMOVED.
1364
5330533d
SS
1365* Gould support removed
1366
1367Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1368
bc9e5bbf
AC
1369* New features for SVR4
1370
1371On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1372without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1373load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1374
1375* Many C++ enhancements
1376
1377C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1378in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1379
adf40b2e
JM
1380* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1381
1382A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1383sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1384with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1385``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1386
1387 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1388 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1389
43e526b9
JM
1390* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1391
1392A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1393expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1394instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1395
1396The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1397added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1398
96baa820
JM
1399* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1400
1401The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1402``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1403include ``set remote P-packet''.
1404
11cf8741
JM
1405* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1406
1407The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1408accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1409``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1410
7876dd43
DB
1411* ``apropos'' command added.
1412
1413The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1414documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1415try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1416
bc9e5bbf
AC
1417* New MI interface
1418
1419A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1420interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1421process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1422"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1423enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1424
1425 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1426
c906108c
SS
1427*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1428
1429* New native configurations
1430
1431HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1432HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1433M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1434
1435* New targets
1436
1437Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1438Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1439Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1440
1441* OBSOLETE configurations
1442
1443Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1444
1445Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1446but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1447these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1448be permanently REMOVED.
1449
1450* ANSI/ISO C
1451
1452As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1453buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1454containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1455use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1456available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1457configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1458information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1459already.
1460
1461* Readline 2.2
1462
1463GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1464
1465* set extension-language
1466
1467You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1468languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1469you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1470 set extension-language .c c++
1471The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1472and their associated languages.
1473
1474* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1475
1476When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1477you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1478PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1479
1480 set processor NAME
1481
1482sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1483following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1484
1485 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1486 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1487 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1488 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1489 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1490 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1491 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1492 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1493 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1494 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1495 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1496
1497At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1498special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1499registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1500only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1501
1502* HP-UX support
1503
1504Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1505more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1506library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1507support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1508for xdb and dbx commands.
1509
1510* Catchpoints
1511
1512HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1513generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1514to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1515
1516This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1517argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1518output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1519
1520* Debugging across forks
1521
1522On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1523in the inferior.
1524
1525* TUI
1526
1527HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1528it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1529configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1530
1531* GDB remote protocol additions
1532
1533A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1534Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1535fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1536allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1537
1538For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1539full 64-bit address. The command
1540
1541 set remoteaddresssize 32
1542
1543can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1544the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1545will be discarded.
1546
1547In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1548command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1549
1550 maint packet heythere
1551
1552sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1553disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1554time.
1555
1556The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1557target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1558downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1559
1560* Tracing can collect general expressions
1561
1562You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1563further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1564doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1565
1566* mask-address variable for Mips
1567
1568For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1569a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1570of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1571
1572* Higher serial baud rates
1573
1574GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1575230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1576to achieve all of these rates.)
1577
1578* i960 simulator
1579
1580The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1581builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1582
1583
1584*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1585
1586* New native configurations
1587
1588Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1589Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1590Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1591PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1592PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1593Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1594Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1595
1596* New targets
1597
1598Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1599Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1600Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1601Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1602MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1603MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1604MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1605Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1606Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1607Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1608NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1609
1610* New debugging protocols
1611
1612ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1613M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1614DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1615PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1616PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1617Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1618
1619* DWARF 2
1620
1621All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1622format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1623information.
1624
1625* Java frontend
1626
1627GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1628only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1629
1630* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1631
1632For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1633loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1634locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1635
1636* Live range splitting
1637
1638GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1639range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1640more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1641
1642* Hurd support
1643
1644GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1645updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1646
1647* ARM Thumb support
1648
1649GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1650instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1651instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1652accordingly.
1653
1654* MIPS16 support
1655
1656GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1657instruction set.
1658
1659* Overlay support
1660
1661GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1662linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1663will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1664control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1665additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1666in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1667
1668* info symbol
1669
1670The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1671the symbol at the specified address.
1672
1673* Trace support
1674
1675The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1676asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1677extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1678includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1679file tracepoint.c for more details.
1680
1681* MIPS simulator
1682
1683Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1684by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1685of most MIPS variants.
1686
1687* Sparc simulator
1688
1689Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1690by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1691Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1692
1693* set architecture
1694
1695For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1696basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1697architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1698the possible architectures.
1699
1700*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1701
1702* New native configurations
1703
1704Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1705M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1706PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1707PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1708PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1709RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1710
1711* New targets
1712
1713ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1714I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1715MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1716MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1717PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1718Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1719Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1720
1721* PowerPC simulator
1722
1723The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1724contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1725PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1726basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1727performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1728
1729* Solaris 2.5
1730
1731GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1732
1733* Windows 95/NT native
1734
1735GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1736To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1737which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1738Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1739ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1740
1741* dont-repeat command
1742
1743If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1744command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1745useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1746extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1747
1748* Send break instead of ^C
1749
1750The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1751rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1752GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1753
1754* Remote protocol timeout
1755
1756The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1757that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1758to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1759
1760* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1761
1762By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1763loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1764stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1765when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1766in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1767
1768Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1769/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1770automatically on hpux10.
1771
1772* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1773
1774Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1775
1776* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1777
1778When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1779may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1780the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1781every character. The default value is 1050.
1782
1783* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1784
1785If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1786a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1787replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1788details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1789remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1790to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1791
1792* Speedups for remote debugging
1793
1794GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1795the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1796and more efficient S-record downloading.
1797
1798* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1799
1800GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1801Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1802
1803*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1804
1805* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1806
1807The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1808can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1809
1810* Remote targets use caching
1811
1812Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1813remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1814it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1815debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1816off' turns the the data cache off.
1817
1818* Remote targets may have threads
1819
1820The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1821in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1822gdb/remote.c for details.
1823
1824* NetROM support
1825
1826If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1827support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1828acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1829write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1830support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1831another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1832sequence is something like
1833
1834 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1835 load <prog>
1836 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1837
1838* Macintosh host
1839
1840GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1841may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1842it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1843available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1844device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1845directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1846scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1847mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1848
1849* Autoconf
1850
1851GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1852but does simplify configuration and building.
1853
1854* hpux10
1855
1856GDB now supports hpux10.
1857
1858*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1859
1860* New native configurations
1861
1862x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1863x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1864NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1865Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1866
1867* New targets
1868
1869A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1870HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1871CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1872PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1873WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1874
1875* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1876
1877GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1878possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1879filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1880the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1881if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1882
1883* Arguments to user-defined commands
1884
1885User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1886Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1887trivial example:
1888define adder
1889 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1890
1891To execute the command use:
1892adder 1 2 3
1893
1894Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1895Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1896use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1897
1898* New `if' and `while' commands
1899
1900This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1901commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1902expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1903execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1904terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1905`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1906if the expression is zero.
1907
1908* Fortran source language mode
1909
1910GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1911Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1912variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1913with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1914Fortran compilers.
1915
1916* Better HPUX support
1917
1918Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1919running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1920processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1921for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1922that behavior do the following before running the program:
1923
1924 adb -w a.out
1925 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1926 control-d
1927
1928This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1929To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1930
1931 adb -w a.out
1932 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1933 control-d
1934
1935You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1936the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1937external linkage.
1938
1939GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1940HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1941
1942* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1943
1944You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1945commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1946current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1947"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1948associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1949configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1950
1951* New DOS host serial code
1952
1953This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1954no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1955a PC's serial port.
1956
1957*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1958
1959* New "complete" command
1960
1961This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1962were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1963
1964* Trailing space optional in prompt
1965
1966"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1967allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1968
1969* Breakpoint hit counts
1970
1971"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1972has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1973can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1974to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1975less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1976that breakpoint.
1977
1978* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1979
1980"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1981an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1982arrays actually contain only short strings.
1983
1984* Shared library breakpoints
1985
1986In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1987breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1988
1989* Hardware watchpoints
1990
1991There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1992targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1993
55241689 1994Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1995
1996* Annotations
1997
1998Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1999and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2000
2001* Improved Irix 5 support
2002
2003GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2004
2005* Improved HPPA support
2006
2007GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2008
2009* New native configurations
2010
2011Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2012HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2013Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2014RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2015
2016* New targets
2017
2018OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2019MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2020Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2021
2022* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2023
2024There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2025This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2026
2027* Fixes
2028
2029As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2030and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2031
2032*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2033
2034* Irix 5 is now supported
2035
2036* HPPA support
2037
2038GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2039to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2040GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2041of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2042can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2043
2044
2045*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2046
2047* User visible changes:
2048
2049* Remote Debugging
2050
2051The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2052target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2053debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2054integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2055debugging info for the mips target).
2056
2057* DEC Alpha native support
2058
2059GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2060debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2061work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2062Alpha-specific notes.
2063
2064* Preliminary thread implementation
2065
2066GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2067
2068* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2069
2070This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2071to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2072for details).
2073
2074* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2075
2076This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2077mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2078call methods, ...etc.
2079
2080*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2081
2082 * User visible changes:
2083
2084Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2085supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2086other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2087somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2088
2089Filename completion now works.
2090
2091When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2092arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2093addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2094
2095All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2096vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2097should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2098your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2099to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2100
2101 * DEC alpha support
2102
2103This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2104cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2105
2106
2107*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2108
2109 * Testsuite
2110
2111This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2112The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2113via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2114
2115 * C++ demangling
2116
2117'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2118emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2119Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2120disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2121use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2122
2123 * Simulators
2124
2125GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2126So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2127Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2128
2129 * New targets supported
2130
2131H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2132H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2133SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2134Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2135IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2136
2137Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2138version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2139GO32 memory extender.
2140
2141 * New remote protocols
2142
2143MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2144
2145 * New source languages supported
2146
2147This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2148used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2149into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2150
2151
2152*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2153
2154 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2155
2156GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2157version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2158University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2159compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2160format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2161(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2162
2163Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2164
2165 * Faster and better demangling
2166
2167We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2168demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2169character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2170only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2171This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2172increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2173symbol lookups.
2174
2175`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2176from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2177compiler does not actually implement.
2178
2179 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2180
2181In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2182inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2183recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2184very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2185The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2186circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2187fix.
2188
2189The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2190release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2191
2192 * Improved configure script
2193
2194The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2195you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2196host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2197done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2198
2199We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2200version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2201`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2202The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2203only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2204We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2205
2206 * Documentation improvements
2207
2208There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2209produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2210before submitting changes.
2211
2212The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2213M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2214`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2215you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2216a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2217
2218*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2219We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2220been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2221or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2222`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2223around this problem.
2224
2225 * New features
2226
2227GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2228the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2229`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2230the target program.
2231
2232The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2233how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2234
2235 * New native hosts supported
2236
2237HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2238386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2239
2240 * New targets supported
2241
2242AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2243
2244 * New file formats supported
2245
2246BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2247HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2248
2249 * Major bug fixes
2250
2251Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2252
2253We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2254printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2255
2256We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2257for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2258release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2259
2260You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2261will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2262
2263We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2264for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2265especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2266libraries.
2267
2268The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2269information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2270command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2271any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2272when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2273
2274 * Internal improvements
2275
2276GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2277debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2278
2279GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2280Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2281symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2282contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2283shared code that handles any of them.
2284
2285 * New command line options
2286
2287We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2288
2289 * Mmalloc licensing
2290
2291The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2292General Public License.
2293
2294*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2295
2296 * Host/native/target split
2297
2298GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2299hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2300target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2301local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2302ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2303
2304The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2305GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2306is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2307code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2308any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2309built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2310handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2311
2312GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2313It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2314plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2315
2316 * New hosts supported
2317
2318HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2319386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2320386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2321
2322 * New targets supported
2323
2324Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
232568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2326
2327 * New native hosts supported
2328
2329386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2330 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2331386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2332
2333 * New file formats supported
2334
2335BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2336supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2337format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2338
2339 * New commands
2340
2341`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2342`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2343These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2344
2345`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2346
2347You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2348scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2349prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2350executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2351
2352 * C++ improvements
2353
2354We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2355info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2356symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2357
2358Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2359
2360 * Major bug fixes
2361
2362The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2363fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2364by the compiler.
2365
2366We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2367support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2368
2369John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2370slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2371that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2372purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2373the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2374mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2375
2376Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2377about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2378completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2379we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2380
2381 * AMD 29k support
2382
2383A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2384specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2385calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2386usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2387in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2388
2389We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2390Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2391of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2392resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2393
2394 * Remote interfaces
2395
2396We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2397with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2398message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2399This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2400needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2401breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2402each instruction being stepped through.
2403
2404The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2405registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2406
2407There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2408find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2409Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2410processor with a serial port.
2411
2412 * Configuration
2413
2414Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2415`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2416supported, and what files each one uses.
2417
2418 * Library changes
2419
2420There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2421disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2422Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2423disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2424
2425The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2426Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2427can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2428grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2429
2430 * Documentation
2431
2432The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2433reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2434as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2435encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2436system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2437bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2438
2439And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2440
2441
2442*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2443
2444 * Better support for C++ function names
2445
2446GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2447names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2448(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2449single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2450Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2451
2452GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2453the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2454You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2455lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2456for the list of formats.
2457
2458 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2459
2460Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2461C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2462directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2463can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2464usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2465about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2466this problem.)
2467
2468 * New 'maintenance' command
2469
2470All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2471the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2472can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2473
2474 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2475 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2476 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2477 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2478 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2479 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2480
2481The following commands are new:
2482
2483 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2484 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2485 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2486
2487 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2488
2489We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2490(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2491be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2492read after argv processing.
2493
2494 * New hosts supported
2495
2496Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2497
55241689 2498GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2499
2500We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2501is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2502for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2503masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2504fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2505It costs extra.
2506
2507 * New targets supported
2508
2509Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2510
2511 * More smarts about finding #include files
2512
2513GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2514all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2515greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2516especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2517the one that contains your sources.
2518
2519We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2520breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2521try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2522
2523 * Interesting infernals change
2524
2525GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2526section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2527target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2528stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2529
2530 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2531
2532There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2533 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2534 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2535
2536See the ChangeLog for details.
2537
2538*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2539
2540 * New machines supported (host and target)
2541
2542IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2543
2544SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2545
2546 * New malloc package
2547
2548GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2549Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2550capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2551This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2552pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2553more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2554
2555 * info proc
2556
2557The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2558'help info proc' for details.
2559
2560 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2561
2562The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2563Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2564possible.
2565
2566 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2567
2568Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2569support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2570conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2571environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2572that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2573in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2574
2575 * Cross byte order fixes
2576
2577Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2578targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2579
2580 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2581
2582If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2583system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2584`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2585program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2586called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2587Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2588and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2589the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2590option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2591starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2592
2593You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2594the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2595information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2596slower, but makes future operations faster.
2597
2598The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2599build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2600A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2601use is:
2602
2603 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2604
2605The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2606It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2607shared across multiple host platforms.
2608
2609 * longjmp() handling
2610
2611GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2612siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2613all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2614platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2615
2616 * Solaris 2.0
2617
2618Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2619this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2620reading symbols.
2621
2622 * Bug fixes
2623
2624As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2625People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2626crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2627
2628*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2629
2630 * New machines supported (host and target)
2631
2632SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2633 (except core files)
2634BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2635Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2636
2637 * New machines supported (target)
2638
2639AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2640
2641 * C++ support
2642
2643GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2644The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2645per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2646
2647GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2648`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2649extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2650good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2651will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2652released.
2653
2654 * New features for SVR4
2655
2656GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2657shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2658only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2659
2660The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2661on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2662it prints the address mappings of the process.
2663
2664If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2665bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2666
2667 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2668
2669Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2670now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2671skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2672make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2673same code linked statically.
2674
2675 * New Getopt
2676
2677GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2678version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2679continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2680Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2681added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2682future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2683
2684 * Bugs fixed
2685
2686The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2687Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2688See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2689
2690
2691*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2692
2693 * New machines supported (host and target)
2694
2695Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2696NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2697Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2698
2699 * Almost SCO Unix support
2700
2701We had hoped to support:
2702SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2703(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2704that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2705about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2706
2707 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2708
2709GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2710debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2711is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2712send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2713reqired (if any).
2714
2715 * New Readline
2716
2717GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2718is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2719required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2720
2721 * Bugs fixed
2722
2723The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2724Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2725See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2726
2727 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2728
2729GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2730supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2731symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2732
2733Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2734mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2735debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2736mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2737version 2.
2738
2739Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2740really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2741line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2742variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2743situation somewhat.
2744
2745When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2746However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2747methods.
2748
2749We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2750DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2751encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2752
2753
2754*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2755
2756 * Improved configuration
2757
2758Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2759Porting BFD is simpler.
2760
2761 * Stepping improved
2762
2763The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2764of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2765in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2766function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2767
2768 * Bug fixing
2769
2770Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2771
2772 * New host supported (not target)
2773
2774Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2775
2776
2777*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2778
2779 * Multiple source language support
2780
2781GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2782It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2783and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2784language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2785You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2786`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2787
2788 * GDB and Modula-2
2789
2790GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2791currently under development at the State University of New York at
2792Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2793continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2794
2795Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2796debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2797symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2798
2799There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2800in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2801
2802 * set write on/off
2803
2804GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2805a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2806the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2807by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2808effect immediately.
2809
2810 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2811
2812When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2813shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2814The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2815examining core files.
2816
2817 * set listsize
2818
2819You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2820The default is 10.
2821
2822 * New machines supported (host and target)
2823
2824SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2825Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2826Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2827
2828 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2829
2830IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2831
2832 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2833
2834AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2835AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2836Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2837
2838 * New remote interfaces
2839
2840AMD 29000 Adapt
2841AMD 29000 Minimon
2842
2843
2844*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2845
2846 * New Facilities
2847
2848Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2849
2850Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2851target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2852is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2853remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2854remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2855also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2856using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2857stub on the target system.
2858
2859New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2860
2861GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2862library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2863object file types such as a.out and coff.
2864
2865There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2866refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2867
2868
2869 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2870
2871All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2872by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2873
2874For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2875``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2876Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2877
2878What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2879print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2880will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2881all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2882
2883confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2884 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2885 it is already running. Default is ON.
2886
2887editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2888 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2889 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2890 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2891 Default is ON.
2892
2893history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2894 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2895 or the value of the environment variable
2896 GDBHISTFILE.
2897
2898history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2899 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2900 HISTSIZE.
2901
2902history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2903 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2904 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2905
2906history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2907 history expansion will be performed on
2908 command line input. The default is OFF.
2909
2910radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2911 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2912 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2913
2914height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2915 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2916 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2917 variable TERM.
2918
2919width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2920 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2921 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2922 variable TERM.
2923
2924Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2925``set width'' instead.
2926
2927print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2928 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2929 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2930 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2931
2932print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2933 is OFF.
2934
2935print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2936 "raw" form if off.
2937
2938print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2939 like instructions.
2940
2941print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2942
2943
2944 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2945
2946The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2947new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2948are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2949window.
2950
2951
2952 * Support for Shared Libraries
2953
2954GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2955Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2956before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2957happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2958At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2959from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2960shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2961It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2962
2963sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2964 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2965 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2966
2967info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2968
2969
2970 * Watchpoints
2971
2972A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2973expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2974tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2975quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2976problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2977more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2978
2979watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2980
2981info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2982
2983delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2984disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2985enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2986
2987
2988 * C++ multiple inheritance
2989
2990When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2991for C++ programs.
2992
2993 * C++ exception handling
2994
2995Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2996ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2997the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2998handler's context).
2999
3000catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3001 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3002 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3003
3004info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3005 current stack frame.
3006
3007
3008 * Minor command changes
3009
3010The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3011command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3012is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3013
3014The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3015at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3016frames without printing.
3017
3018 * New directory command
3019
3020'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3021The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3022about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3023with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3024find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3025
3026 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3027
3028For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3029for more details.
3030
3031GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3032two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3033Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3034where the program that you are debugging will run.