]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
2012-03-07 Pedro Alves <palves@redhat.com>
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
8d5b6c2b 4*** Changes since GDB 7.4
d6e00af6 5
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6* Python scripting
7
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8 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
9 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
10
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11 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
12
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13 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
14 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
15
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16 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
17
18 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
19 the source at which the symbol was defined.
20
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21 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
22 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
23 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
24 symbol's value.
25
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26* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
27 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
28
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29* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
30 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
31
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32* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
33 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
34 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
35 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
36 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
37 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
38
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39* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
40 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
41 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
42 build/libcpp/expr.c.
43
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44* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
45 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
46
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47* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
48 since December 2007.
49
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50* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
51 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
52 command does. For instance:
53
54 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
55
56 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
57 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
58 created, using the "condition" command.
59
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60* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
61 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
62
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63* New commands
64
65 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
66 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
67
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68 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
69 several hits.
70
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71* New targets
72
73Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 74HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
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76* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
77 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
78 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
79 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
80 evaluates to true.
81
82* New options
83
84set breakpoint condition-evaluation
85show breakpoint condition-evaluation
86 Controls whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("gdb") or by
87 GDBserver ("target").
88 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
89 target.
90
91* New remote packets
92
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93z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
94
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95 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
96 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
97 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
98 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
99
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100*** Changes in GDB 7.4
101
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102* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
103 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
104 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
105 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
106 inferior changes.
107
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108* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
109 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
110
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111* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
112 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
113 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
114 target hardware watchpoint.
115
116 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
117 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
118 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
119 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
120
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121* Python scripting
122
32d1c362 123 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 124 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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125 existing one.
126
3a7bf607 127 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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128 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
129 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
130 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
131 now "message", which just prints the error message without
132 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 133
baacfb07 134 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 135 Python API.
713389e0 136
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137 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
138 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 139 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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140 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
141 corresponding value.
142
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143 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
144 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
145 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
146 on GDB start-up.
147
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148 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
149 static_block will return the global and static blocks
150 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
151 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
152
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153 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
154
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155 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
156 "gdb.breakpoints".
157
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158 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
159 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
160 available in the CLI.
161
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162 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
163 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
164 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
165 "some_type.items()".
166
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167 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
168 new object file.
169
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170 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
171 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
172 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
173 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
174 any anonymous fields.
175
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176* MI changes
177
178 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
179 "solib-event".
180
181 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
182 "=breakpoint-modified".
183
184 ** New command -ada-task-info.
185
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186* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
187 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
188 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
189 lives.
190
191 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
192 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
193 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
194 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
195 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
196
197 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
198 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
199
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200* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
201 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
202 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
203 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
204 use this option to specify where to find it.
205
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206* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
207 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
208 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
209 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
210 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
211 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
212 section in the user manual for more details.
213
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214* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
215 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
216 become available after that.
217
71eba9c2 218* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 219
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220* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
221 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
222 gcc version 4.7.
223
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224* New commands
225
226!SHELL COMMAND
227 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
228 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
229
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230* Changed commands
231
232watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
233 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
234 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
235
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236info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
237 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
238 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
239
71eba9c2 240info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
241 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
242 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
243 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
244 name starts with a hyphen.
245
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246collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
247 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
248 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
249 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
250 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
251 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
252 number of bytes that will be collected.
253
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254tstart [NOTES]
255 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
256 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
257 setting the variable trace-notes.
258
259tstop [NOTES]
260 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
261 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
262 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
263 trace-stop-notes.
264
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265* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
266 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
267 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
268 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
269 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
270 is running.
271
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272* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
273 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
274 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
275
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276* New options
277
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278set extended-prompt
279show extended-prompt
280 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
281 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
282 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
283 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
284 prompt is displayed.
285
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286set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
287show print entry-values
288 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
289 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
290 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
291
292set debug entry-values
293show debug entry-values
294 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
295 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
296
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297set basenames-may-differ
298show basenames-may-differ
299 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
300 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
301 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
302 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
303 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
304 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
305 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
306 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
307
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308set trace-user
309show trace-user
310set trace-notes
311show trace-notes
312 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
313 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
314 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
315 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
316
317set trace-stop-notes
318show trace-stop-notes
319 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
320 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
321 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
322 started by someone else.
323
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324* New remote packets
325
326QTEnable
327
328 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
329
330QTDisable
331
332 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
333
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334QTNotes
335
336 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
337
338qTP
339
340 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
341
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342qTMinFTPILen
343
344 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
345 be placed.
346
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347* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
348 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
349
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350* New targets
351
352Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
353
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354* New Simulators
355
356Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
357
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358*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
359
360* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
361
d6e00af6 362*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 363
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364* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
365 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
366 matches the given regular expression.
367
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368* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
369
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370* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
371 dumping the instruction opcodes.
372
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373* New command line options
374
375-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
376 This is mostly for testing purposes.
377
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378* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
379 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
380
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381* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
382 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
383 source path list instead of augmenting it.
384
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385* GDB now understands thread names.
386
387 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
388 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
389
390 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
391 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
392
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393* OpenCL C
394 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
395 has been integrated into GDB.
396
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397* Python scripting
398
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399 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
400 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
401 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
402
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403 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
404 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
405 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
406 and allows for more dynamic content.
407
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408 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
409 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
410 have an is_valid method.
411
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412 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
413 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
414 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
415
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416 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
417
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418 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
419 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
420 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
421 that function like so:
422
423 result = some_value (10,20)
424
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425 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
426 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
427 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
428
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429 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
430 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
431 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
432 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
433 New function: register_pretty_printer.
434
435 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
436 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
437
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438 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
439
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440 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
441 selected thread.
442
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443 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
444 holds the thread's name.
445
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446 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
447 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 448 occurring in the process being debugged.
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449 The following events are currently supported:
450 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
451 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
452 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
453
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454* C++ Improvements:
455
456 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
457 instantiation. For example, if you have:
458
459 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
460
461 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
462 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
463 was added to GCC 4.5.
464
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465 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
466 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
467 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
468 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
469 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
470 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
471
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472* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
473 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
474 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
475 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
476 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
477
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478* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
479 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
480 execution to a label.
481
482* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
483 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
484 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
485 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
486
b56df873 487* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 488 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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489 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
490 of scope.
491
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492* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
493
494 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
495 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
496 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
497 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
498 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
499 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
500
501 (gdb) info threads
502 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
503
504 While now you see this:
505
506 (gdb) info threads
507 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
508
509 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
510 dumps.
511
512 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
513 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
514 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
515 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
516
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517* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
518 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
519 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
520 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
521 section in the user manual for more details.
522
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523* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
524
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525 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
526 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 527
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528 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
529
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530* New native configurations
531
532ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
533
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534* New targets:
535
536Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
537
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538* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
539 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
540 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
541 in the GDB user manual.
542
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543* Guile support was removed.
544
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545* New features in the GNU simulator
546
547 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
548
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549 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
550
76b8507d 551*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 552
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553* Shared library support for remote targets by default
554
555 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
556 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
557 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
558 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
559 was always disabled for such configurations.
560
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561* C++ Improvements:
562
563 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
564
565 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
566 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
567 For example:
568 namespace A
569 {
570 class B { };
571 void foo (B) { }
572 }
573 ...
574 A::B b
575 foo(b)
576 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
577 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
578 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
579
580 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
581
582 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
583 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
584 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
585 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
586 entry.
587 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
588 mentioned flavors of operators.
589
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590 ** static const class members
591
592 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
593 class definition has been fixed.
594
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595* Windows Thread Information Block access.
596
597 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
598 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
599 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
600 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
601 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
602 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
603
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604* Static tracepoints
605
606 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
607 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
608 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
609 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
610 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
611 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
612 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
613 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
614 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
615 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
616 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
617 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
618 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
619 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
620 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
621 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
622 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
623 the "New remote packets" section below.
624
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SS
625* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
626
627 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
628 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
629 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
630 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
631
632* Observer mode
633
634 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
635 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
636 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
637 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
638 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
639 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
640 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
641
642* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
643 current thread.
644
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645* New remote packets
646
647qGetTIBAddr
648
649 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
650
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PA
651qRelocInsn
652
653 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
654 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
655 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
656 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
657 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
658 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
659
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PA
660qTfSTM, qTsSTM
661
662 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
663
664qTSTMat
665
666 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
667 program.
668
669qXfer:statictrace:read
670
671 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
672 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
673 to gdb's qSupported query.
674
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SS
675QAllow
676
677 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
678
679QTDPsrc
680
681 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
682 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
683
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DE
684* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
685 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
686 a directory.
687
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PA
688* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
689
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PA
690 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
691 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
692 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
693 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
694
695 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
696 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
697 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
698 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
699 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
700 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
701 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
702
703 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
704 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 705
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706 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
707
c8d5aac9
L
708* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
709 it understands register description.
710
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TT
711* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
712
8685c86f
L
713* X86 general purpose registers
714
715 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
716 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
717 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
718 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
719 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
720
95a42b64 721* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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PA
722 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
723 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
724 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
725 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
726 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 727
8bd10a10
CM
728* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
729 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
730 in the specified file.
731
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PA
732* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
733 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
734 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
735 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
736 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
737 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
738 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
739 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
740 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
741 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
742
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PA
743* New commands
744
f1421989
HZ
745eval template, expressions...
746 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
747 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
748
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PA
749set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
750show target-file-system-kind
751 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
752 names.
753
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PA
754save breakpoints <filename>
755 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
756 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
757 definitions, use the `source' command.
758
759`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
760is now deprecated.
761
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PA
762info static-tracepoint-markers
763 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
764
765strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
766 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
767 function, line, address, or marker ID.
768
ca11e899
SS
769set observer on|off
770show observer
771 Enable and disable observer mode.
772
773set may-write-registers on|off
774set may-write-memory on|off
775set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
776set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
777set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
778set may-interrupt on|off
779 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
780 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
781 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
782 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
783 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
784 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
785 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
786
787set record memory-query on|off
788show record memory-query
789 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
790 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
791
53a71c06
CR
792* Changed commands
793
794disassemble
795 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
796
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PM
797* Python scripting
798
9279c692
JB
799** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
800 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
801 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
802 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
803 GDB using Python' in the manual.
804
adc36818 805** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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806 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
807 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
808 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 809
fa33c3cd 810** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
811 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
812
813** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
814
815** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 816
967cf477
DE
817** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
818
8a1ea21f
DE
819** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
820 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
821 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
822
a7bdde9e
VP
823* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
824there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
825tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
826regular breakpoints.
827
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PA
828* New targets
829
830ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
831
6aecb9c2
JB
832* D language support.
833 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
834 language.
835
431e49aa
TJB
836* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
837 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
838 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
839 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
840 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
841
842* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
843 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
844 conditions of the form:
845
846 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
847
848 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
849 interface mentioned above.
850
bfbf3774 851*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 852
4eef138c
TT
853* C++ Improvements
854
855 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
856
857 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
858 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
859 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
860 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
861 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
862
4eef138c
TT
863 ** Bug Fixes
864
865 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
866 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
867 qualified name.
868
869 ** Cast Operators
870
871 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
872 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
873
2d1c1221
ME
874* New targets
875
876Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 877Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
878
879* New Simulators
880
881Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 882Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 883
6c95b8df
PA
884* Multi-program debugging.
885
886 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
887 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
888 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
889 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
890 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
891 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
892 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
893 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
894
d5551862
SS
895* New tracing features
896
897 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
898
899 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
900
901 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
902 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
903 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
904 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
905 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
906 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
907 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
908 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
909 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
910 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 911
d5551862 912 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
913
914 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
915 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
916 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
917 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
918 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
919 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
920 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
921 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
922 the regular trace command.
923
d5551862
SS
924 ** Disconnected tracing
925
926 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
927 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
928 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
929 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
930 connection is lost unexpectedly.
931
00bf0b85
SS
932 ** Trace files
933
934 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
935 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
936 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
937 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
938 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
939 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
940 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
941
942 ** Circular trace buffer
943
944 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
945 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
946 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
947 not be available for all target agents.
948
21a0512e
PP
949* Changed commands
950
951disassemble
952 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
953 the arguments to be comma-separated.
954
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DJ
955info variables
956 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
957 which only declare a variable are not shown.
958
fb2e7cb4
JB
959source
960 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
961 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
962 support.
963
964 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
965 "set script-extension" (see below).
966
6c95b8df
PA
967* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
968
399cd161
MS
969record save [<FILENAME>]
970 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
971 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
972
973record restore <FILENAME>
974 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
975 earlier time, for replay debugging.
976
6c95b8df
PA
977add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
978 Add a new inferior.
979
980clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
981 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
982 inferior has loaded.
983
984remove-inferior ID
985 Remove an inferior.
986
987maint info program-spaces
988 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
989
9a7071a8
JB
990set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
991show remote interrupt-sequence
992 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
993 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
994 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
995 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
996 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
997
998set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
999show remote interrupt-on-connect
1000 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1001 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1002 Linux kernel.
1003
1004set remotebreak [on | off]
1005show remotebreak
1006Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1007
f61e138d
SS
1008tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1009 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1010
1011info tvariables
1012 List trace state variables and their values.
1013
1014delete tvariable $NAME ...
1015 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1016
6da95a67
SS
1017teval EXPR, ...
1018 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1019 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1020
7a697b8d
SS
1021ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1022 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1023
b0f02ee9
JK
1024* New expression syntax
1025
1026 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1027 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1028
6c95b8df
PA
1029* New options
1030
1031set follow-exec-mode new|same
1032show follow-exec-mode
1033 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1034 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1035 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1036
236f1d4d
SS
1037set default-collect EXPR, ...
1038show default-collect
1039 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1040 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1041 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1042
d5551862
SS
1043set disconnected-tracing
1044show disconnected-tracing
1045 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1046 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1047 upon disconnection.
1048
4daf5ac0
SS
1049set circular-trace-buffer
1050show circular-trace-buffer
1051 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1052 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1053 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1054 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1055
fb2e7cb4
JB
1056set script-extension off|soft|strict
1057show script-extension
1058 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1059 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1060 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1061 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1062 evaluation failed.
1063 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1064
2b71fc8e
JB
1065set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1066show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1067 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1068 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1069 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1070 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1071 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1072 is on.
1073
de2e5182
TT
1074* Python API Improvements
1075
1076 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1077 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1078 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1079
1080 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1081 `is_base_class' attribute.
1082
1083 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1084
1085 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1086 evaluate an expression.
1087
f61e138d
SS
1088* New remote packets
1089
1090QTDV
1091 Define a trace state variable.
1092
1093qTV
1094 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1095
d5551862
SS
1096QTDisconnected
1097 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1098
4daf5ac0
SS
1099QTBuffer:circular
1100 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1101
d5551862
SS
1102qTfP, qTsP
1103 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1104
2d483d34
MS
1105* Bug fixes
1106
1107Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1108
6e0e5977
JB
1109Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1110much more reliable. In particular:
1111 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1112 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1113 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1114 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1115 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1116 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1117 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1118 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1119 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1120 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1121 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1122 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1123 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1124 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1125 non-threaded programs.
1126
93c26624
JK
1127PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1128This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1129libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1130executable program.
1131
abc7453d 1132*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1133
4efc6507
DE
1134* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1135dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1136them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1137for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1138"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1139
782b2b07
SS
1140* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1141breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1142or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1143the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1144for tracepoint actions.
1145
53a71c06
CR
1146* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1147raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1148modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1149
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1150* Process record and replay
1151
1152 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1153 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1154 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1155 execute commands.
1156
64644d9b
MS
1157* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1158step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1159set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1160reverse execution.
1161
b9412953
DD
1162* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1163feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
11642.6.28 or later.
1165
6c7a06a3
TT
1166* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1167target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1168char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1169literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1170U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1171`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1172system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1173the installation instructions for more information.
1174
f1838a98
UW
1175* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1176remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1177with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1178the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1179
55333a84
DE
1180* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1181and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1182
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PM
1183* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1184now complete on file names.
1185
65d12d83
TT
1186* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1187completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1188For instance, consider:
1189
1190 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1191 # struct example variable;
1192 (gdb) p variable.
1193
1194If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1195completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1196
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DJ
1197* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1198the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1199
2fae03e8
TT
1200* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1201operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1202macros.
1203
47a3467a 1204* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1205the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1206implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1207
1208* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1209registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1210can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1211and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1212
08388c79
DE
1213* New remote packets
1214
1215qSearch:memory:
1216 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1217
a6f3e723
SL
1218QStartNoAckMode
1219 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1220 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1221 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1222
d7713ae0
EZ
1223vKill
1224 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1225 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1226
07e059b5
VP
1227qXfer:osdata:read
1228 Obtains additional operating system information
1229
47a3467a
PA
1230qXfer:siginfo:read
1231qXfer:siginfo:write
1232 Read or write additional signal information.
1233
060871df
PA
1234* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1235
1236 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1237 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1238 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1239
c055b101 1240* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1241DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1242
1243* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1244and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1245`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1246
31fffb02
CS
1247* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1248with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1249
88d8a8e0
JB
1250* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1251
7f99b190
JB
1252* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1253
ccd213ac
DJ
1254* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1255which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1256
1fddbabb 1257* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1258list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1259
a0ef4274
DJ
1260* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1261conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1262have also been fixed.
1263
bfb8797a 1264* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1265From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1266are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1267
71c25dea
TT
1268* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1269example, given:
1270
1271 template<typename T> class C { };
1272 C<char const *> c;
1273
1274GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1275
1276 ptype C<char const *>
1277 ptype C<char const*>
1278 ptype C<const char *>
1279 ptype C<const char*>
1280
ccd213ac
DJ
1281* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1282
1283 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1284 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1285
7ae0e2a2
UW
1286 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1287 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1288 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1289
a6f3e723
SL
1290 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1291 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1292
da8bd9a3
DJ
1293 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1294 gdbserver.
1295
d70e31dd
DE
1296 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1297 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1298
1299 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1300 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1301 as appropriate.
1302
d57a3c85
TJB
1303* Python scripting
1304
1305 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1306 available is determined at configure time.
1307
d8906c6f
TJB
1308 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1309
aadc346a
JB
1310* Ada tasking support
1311
1312 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1313 been introduced:
1314
1315 info tasks
1316 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1317 info task N
1318 Print detailed information about task number N.
1319 task
1320 Print the task number of the current task.
1321 task N
1322 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1323
adb483fe
DJ
1324* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1325add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1326
2277426b
PA
1327* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1328
1329 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1330 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1331 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1332 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1333 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1334 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1335 below.
1336
08d16641
PA
1337* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1338"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1339information.
1340
e35359c5
UW
1341* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1342to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1343architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1344See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1345more information.
1346
85e747d2
UW
1347* Multi-architecture debugging.
1348
1349 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1350 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1351 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1352 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1353 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1354
1355* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1356use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1357Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1358powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1359--enable-targets configure option.
1360
11ade57a
PA
1361* Non-stop mode debugging.
1362
1363 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1364 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1365 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1366 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1367 section in the user manual for more information.
1368
1369 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1370 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1371 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1372 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1373 extensions on linux targets.
1374
d7713ae0 1375* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1376
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1377catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1378 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1379 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1380 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1381 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1382 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1383 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1384 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1385 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1386
08388c79
DE
1387find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1388 val1 [, val2, ...]
1389 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1390
d57a3c85
TJB
1391maint set python print-stack
1392maint show python print-stack
1393 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1394
1395python [CODE]
1396 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1397
d7713ae0
EZ
1398macro define
1399macro list
1400macro undef
1401 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1402 interactively.
1403
1404info os processes
1405 Show operating system information about processes.
1406
2277426b
PA
1407info inferiors
1408 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1409
1410inferior NUM
1411 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1412
1413detach inferior NUM
1414 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1415
1416kill inferior NUM
1417 Kill inferior number NUM.
1418
d7713ae0
EZ
1419* New options
1420
3285f3fe
UW
1421set spu stop-on-load
1422show spu stop-on-load
1423 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1424
ff1a52c6
UW
1425set spu auto-flush-cache
1426show spu auto-flush-cache
1427 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1428 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1429
d7713ae0
EZ
1430set sh calling-convention
1431show sh calling-convention
1432 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1433
e0a3ce09 1434set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1435show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1436 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1437
1438set disassemble-next-line
1439show disassemble-next-line
1440 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1441 the debuggee stops.
1442
1443set remote noack-packet
1444show remote noack-packet
1445 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1446 under "New remote packets."
1447
1448set remote query-attached-packet
1449show remote query-attached-packet
1450 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1451
1452set remote read-siginfo-object
1453show remote read-siginfo-object
1454 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1455 packet.
1456
1457set remote write-siginfo-object
1458show remote write-siginfo-object
1459 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1460 packet.
1461
40ab02ce
MS
1462set remote reverse-continue
1463show remote reverse-continue
1464 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1465
1466set remote reverse-step
1467show remote reverse-step
1468 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1469
d7713ae0
EZ
1470set displaced-stepping
1471show displaced-stepping
1472 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1473 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1474 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1475
1476set debug displaced
1477show debug displaced
1478 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1479
1480maint set internal-error
1481maint show internal-error
1482 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1483
1484maint set internal-warning
1485maint show internal-warning
1486 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1487
ccd213ac
DJ
1488set exec-wrapper
1489show exec-wrapper
1490unset exec-wrapper
1491 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1492
aad4b048
JB
1493set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1494show multiple-symbols
1495 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1496 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1497 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1498
74960c60
VP
1499set breakpoint always-inserted
1500show breakpoint always-inserted
1501 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1502 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1503 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1504
0428b8f5
DJ
1505set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1506show arm fallback-mode
1507set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1508show arm force-mode
1509 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1510 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1511 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1512 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1513
10568435
JK
1514set disable-randomization
1515show disable-randomization
1516 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1517 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1518 multiple debugging sessions.
1519
d7713ae0
EZ
1520set non-stop
1521show non-stop
1522 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1523 a breakpoint.
1524
b3eb342c 1525set target-async
d7713ae0 1526show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1527 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1528 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1529 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1530 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1531
6c7a06a3
TT
1532set target-wide-charset
1533show target-wide-charset
1534 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1535 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1536
84603566
SL
1537set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1538show tcp auto-retry
1539set tcp connect-timeout
1540show tcp connect-timeout
1541 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1542 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1543 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1544
17a37d48
PP
1545set libthread-db-search-path
1546show libthread-db-search-path
1547 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1548 libthread_db.
1549
d4db2f36
PA
1550set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1551show schedule-multiple
1552 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1553 the current process.
1554
4e5d721f
DE
1555set stack-cache
1556show stack-cache
1557 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1558 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1559 affecting correctness.
1560
910c5da8
JB
1561set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1562show interactive-mode
1563 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1564 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1565 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1566 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1567 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1568
2277426b
PA
1569* Removed commands
1570
1571info forks
1572 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1573 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1574 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1575 command.
1576
1577fork NUM
1578 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1579 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1580 alias for the `fork' command.
1581
1582process PID
1583 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1584 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1585 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1586
1587delete fork NUM
1588 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1589 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1590 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1591 fork' command.
1592
1593detach fork NUM
1594 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1595 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1596 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1597 fork' command.
1598
a80b95ba
TG
1599* New native configurations
1600
1601x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1602
b8bfd3ed
JB
1603x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1604
75a2d5e7
TT
1605* New targets
1606
c28c63d8 1607Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1608x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1609x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1610S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1611
6de3146c
PA
1612* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1613 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1614
d5cbbe6e
JB
1615* Removed commands
1616
1617catch load
1618catch unload
1619 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1620
75feb17d 1621*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1622
af5ca30d
NH
1623* New native configurations
1624
1625NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1626Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1627
1628* New targets
1629
1630NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1631Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1632
7a404eba
PA
1633* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1634
1635 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1636 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1637 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1638 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1639
430ebac9
PA
1640* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1641(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1642
fe6fbf8b 1643* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1644is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1645
1646* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1647including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1648and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1649
10665d76
JB
1650* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1651accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1652more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1653
7cc46491
DJ
1654* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1655
d71340b8
DJ
1656* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1657registers on PowerPC targets.
1658
523c4513
DJ
1659* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1660targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1661
a6b151f1
DJ
1662* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1663commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1664
2d717e4f
DJ
1665* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1666extended-remote mode.
1667
24a836bd 1668* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1669The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1670error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1671The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1672
d0c678e6
UW
1673* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1674building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1675target architectures.
1676
d64a946d
TJB
1677* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1678Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1679now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1680stored in two consecutive float registers.
1681
ee163bf5
VP
1682* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1683breakpoints now.
1684
b93b6ca7 1685* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1686Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1687include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1688 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1689 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1690 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1691 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1692 of an assignment
1693 - Improved command completion in Ada
1694 - Several bug fixes
1695
d001be7a
DJ
1696* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1697process.
1698
a6b151f1
DJ
1699* New commands
1700
6d53d0af
JB
1701set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1702show print frame-arguments
1703 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1704 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1705
a6b151f1
DJ
1706remote put
1707remote get
1708remote delete
1709 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1710
1711* New MI commands
1712
1713-target-file-put
1714-target-file-get
1715-target-file-delete
1716 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1717
1718* New remote packets
1719
1720vFile:open:
1721vFile:close:
1722vFile:pread:
1723vFile:pwrite:
1724vFile:unlink:
1725 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1726
2d717e4f
DJ
1727vAttach
1728 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1729 mode.
1730
1731vRun
1732 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1733
8d5f9c6f 1734*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1735
19d378fc
MS
1736* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1737bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1738Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1739
3a40aaa0
UW
1740* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1741symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1742-Bsymbolic linker option.
1743
a6ec25f2
BW
1744* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1745recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1746is not supported.
1747
6dd09645
JB
1748* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1749frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1750
c9bb8148
DJ
1751* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
175232-bit or 64-bit register values.
1753
0d5de010
DJ
1754* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1755
23181151
DJ
1756* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1757target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1758a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1759
ea37ba09
DJ
1760* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1761automatically displayed as character or string data.
1762
1763* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1764arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1765as strings.
e1f48ead 1766
123dc839
DJ
1767* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1768for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1769only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1770
05a4558a
DJ
1771* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1772iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1773
7c963485
PA
1774* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1775ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1776has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1777
b18be20d
DJ
1778* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1779
0ca420ce
UW
1780* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1781
31d99776
DJ
1782* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1783layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1784segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1785
a4642986
MR
1786* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1787immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1788
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1789* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1790"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1791packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1792where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1793Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1794
1795* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1796(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1797
1798* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1799according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1800
c9bb8148
DJ
1801* New commands
1802
23776285
MR
1803set remoteflow
1804show remoteflow
1805 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1806 when debugging using remote targets.
1807
c9bb8148
DJ
1808set mem inaccessible-by-default
1809show mem inaccessible-by-default
1810 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1811 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1812 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1813 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1814 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1815
1816set breakpoint auto-hw
1817show breakpoint auto-hw
1818 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1819 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1820 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1821 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1822 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1823 including "next" and "finish".
1824
0e420bd8
JB
1825catch exception
1826catch exception unhandled
1827 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1828
1829catch assert
1830 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1831
f822c95b
DJ
1832set sysroot
1833show sysroot
1834 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1835 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1836 an alias to "set sysroot".
1837
83cc5c53
UW
1838info spu
1839 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1840 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1841 architecture.
1842
bd372731
MK
1843* New native configurations
1844
1845OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1846
23181151
DJ
1847set tdesc filename
1848unset tdesc filename
1849show tdesc filename
1850 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1851 not query the target for its built-in description.
1852
c9bb8148
DJ
1853* New targets
1854
54fe9172 1855OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1856MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1857Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1858
6dd09645
JB
1859* New remote packets
1860
1861QPassSignals:
1862 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1863 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1864
23181151
DJ
1865qXfer:features:read:
1866 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1867 features.
6dd09645 1868
83cc5c53
UW
1869qXfer:spu:read:
1870qXfer:spu:write:
1871 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1872 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1873
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1874qXfer:libraries:read:
1875 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1876 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1877 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1878 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1879
483367ee
DJ
1880* Removed targets
1881
1882Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1883
d08950c4
UW
1884alpha*-*-osf1*
1885alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1886d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1887hppa*-*-hiux*
1888i[34567]86-ncr-*
1889i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1890i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1891i[34567]86-*-netware*
1892i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1893i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1894i[34567]86-*-sco*
1895i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1896i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1897i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1898i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1899i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1900i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1901i[34567]86-*-isc*
1902m68*-cisco*-*
1903m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1904mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1905rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1906sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1907
7ce59000
DJ
1908* Other removed features
1909
1910target abug
1911target cpu32bug
1912target est
1913target rom68k
1914
1915 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1916
ea35711c
DJ
1917target hms
1918target e7000
1919target sh3
1920target sh3e
1921
1922 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1923 H8/300.
1924
1925target ocd
1926
1927 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1928 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1929 interfaces.
1930
7ce59000
DJ
1931DWARF 1 support
1932
1933 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1934 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1935
54d61198
DJ
1936Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1937
1938 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1939 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1940 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1941 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1942
ea35711c
DJ
1943MIPS ".pdr" sections
1944
1945 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1946 in debugging information.
1947
1948Scheme support
1949
1950 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1951 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1952
1a69e1e4
DJ
1953set mips stack-arg-size
1954set mips saved-gpreg-size
1955
1956 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1957
6dd09645 1958*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1959
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1960* New targets
1961
1962Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1963Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1964
6aec2e11
DJ
1965* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1966(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1967running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1968
1969* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1970Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1971supported.
1972
17218d91
DJ
1973* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1974broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1975
9ebce043
DJ
1976* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1977stub provides the required support.
1978
7d3d3ece
DJ
1979* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1980longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1981
4f8253f3
JB
1982* New commands
1983
1984set substitute-path
1985unset substitute-path
1986show substitute-path
1987 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1988 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1989 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1990 between compilation and debugging.
1991
9fa66fd7
AS
1992set trace-commands
1993show trace-commands
1994 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1995 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1996 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1997
1f5befc1
DJ
1998* REMOVED features
1999
2000The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2001
2ec3381a
DJ
2002Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2003an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2004
3d00d119
DJ
2005The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2006
be2a5f71
DJ
2007* New remote packets
2008
2009qSupported:
2010 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2011 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2012 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2013 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2014 target.
2015
0876f84a
DJ
2016qXfer:auxv:read:
2017 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2018 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2019
9ebce043
DJ
2020qXfer:memory-map:read:
2021 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2022 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2023
2024vFlashErase:
2025vFlashWrite:
2026vFlashDone:
2027 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2028
0876f84a
DJ
2029* Removed remote packets
2030
2031qPart:auxv:read:
2032 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2033 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2034
e374b601 2035*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2036
96309189
MS
2037* New targets
2038
2039Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2040
2041Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2042
53e5f3cf
AS
2043* New commands
2044
2045init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2046 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2047
ac264b3b
MS
2048The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2049
2050checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2051
2052restart <n> Return the program state to a
2053 previously saved state.
2054
2055info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2056
2057delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2058
2059set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2060 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2061
2062info forks List forks of the user program that
2063 are available to be debugged.
2064
2065fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2066 forks of the user program that are
2067 available to be debugged.
2068
2069delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2070 that are available to be debugged (and
2071 kill the forked process).
2072
2073detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2074 that are available to be debugged (and
2075 allow the process to continue).
2076
3950dc3f
NS
2077* New architecture
2078
2079Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2080
0ea3f30e
DJ
2081* Improved Windows host support
2082
2083GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2084native console support, and remote communications using either
2085network sockets or serial ports.
2086
f79daebb
GM
2087* Improved Modula-2 language support
2088
2089GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2090basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2091pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2092printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2093written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2094GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2095
acab6ab2
MM
2096* REMOVED features
2097
2098The ARM rdi-share module.
2099
f4267320
DJ
2100The Netware NLM debug server.
2101
53e5f3cf 2102*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2103
e0ecbda1
MK
2104* New native configurations
2105
02a677ac 2106OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2107OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2108
d64a6579
KB
2109* New targets
2110
2111Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2112
b33a6190
AS
2113* New command line options
2114
2115--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2116--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2117 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2118--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2119 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2120 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2121 with the --command (-x) option.
2122
11dced61
AC
2123* Deprecated commands removed
2124
2125The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2126removed:
2127
2128 Command Replacement
2129 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2130 othernames set arm disassembler
2131 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2132 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2133 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2134 regs info registers
2135
6fe85783
MK
2136* New BSD user-level threads support
2137
2138It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2139library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2140configurations are:
2141
2142FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2143FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2144OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2145
2146Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2147are not yet supported.
2148
5260ca71
MS
2149* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2150(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2151
e84ecc99
AC
2152* REMOVED configurations and files
2153
2154VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2155Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2156National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2157
31e35378
JB
2158* New "set print array-indexes" command
2159
2160After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2161when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2162behavior.
2163
e85e5c83
MK
2164* VAX floating point support
2165
2166GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2167
d91e9901
AS
2168* User-defined command support
2169
2170In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2171to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2172section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2173
f2cb65ca
MC
2174*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2175
f47b1503
AS
2176* New command line option
2177
2178GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2179debugging.
2180
f2cb65ca
MC
2181* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2182
2183GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2184information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2185by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2186proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2187to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2188
d08c0230
AC
2189* Internationalization
2190
2191When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2192internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2193continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2194
117ea3cf
PH
2195* Ada
2196
2197Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2198implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2199into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2200
d08c0230
AC
2201* New native configurations
2202
2203GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2204
2205* Remote 'p' packet
2206
2207GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2208packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2209
2210* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2211
2212GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2213The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2214features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2215i386 application).
2216
2217GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2218compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2219continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2220configurations:
2221
2222hppa-*-hpux
2223ia64-*-aix
2224mips-*-irix*
2225*-*-lynx
2226mips-*-linux-gnu
2227sds protocol
2228xdr protocol
2229powerpc bdm protocol
2230
2231Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2232made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2233
2234* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2235
2236Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2237been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2238configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2239permanently REMOVED.
2240
2241h8300-*-*
2242mcore-*-*
2243mn10300-*-*
2244ns32k-*-*
2245sh64-*-*
2246v850-*-*
2247
ebb7c577
AC
2248*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2249
2250* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2251
2252When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2253heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2254been fixed.
2255
2256* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2257
2258When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2259fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2260IRIX long double values).
2261
2262* VAX and "next"
2263
2264A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2265command. This problem has been fixed.
2266
860660cb 2267*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2268
0dea2468
AC
2269* Fix for ``many threads''
2270
2271On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2272rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2273error message:
2274
2275 ptrace: No such process.
2276 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2277
2278This problem has been fixed.
2279
2c07db7a
AC
2280* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2281
2282Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2283GDB to dump core).
2284
c23968a2
JB
2285* New ``start'' command.
2286
2287This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2288
71009278
MK
2289* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2290
2291Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2292live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2293platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2294
2295FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2296FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2297NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2298NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2299NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2300OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2301OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2302OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2303OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2304
3c0b7db2
AC
2305* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2306
2307Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2308These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2309of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2310call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2311signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2312
73cc75f3
AC
2313Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2314features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2315include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2316
7243600a
BF
2317* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2318
6f606e1c
MK
2319* New native configurations
2320
97dc871c 2321GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2322OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2323OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2324OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2325OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2326NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2327OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2328
a1b461bf
AC
2329* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2330
2331GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2332The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2333including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2334migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2335compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2336work, was also included.
2337
2338GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2339module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2340
2341h8300-*-*
2342mcore-*-*
2343mn10300-*-*
2344ns32k-*-*
2345sh64-*-*
2346v850-*-*
2347xstormy16-*-*
2348
2349Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2350made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2351
3c7012f5
AC
2352* REMOVED configurations and files
2353
2354Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2355Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2356Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2357Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2358Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2359AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2360Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2361decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2362riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2363sonymips mips-sony-*
2364sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2365
e5fe55f7
AC
2366*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2367
2368* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2369
2370The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2371GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2372command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2373program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2374with GDB".
2375
2376* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2377
2378Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2379libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2380cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2381GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2382shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2383the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2384are created.
2385
2386Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2387
2388* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2389
2390The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2391non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2392compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2393
2394* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2395
2396Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2397wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2398
2399* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2400
2401The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2402permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2403systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2404
2405* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2406
2407Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2408has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2409
2410* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2411
2412GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2413its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2414panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2415
2416* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2417
2418When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2419by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2420not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2421
faae5abe 2422*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2423
9175c9a3
MC
2424* Removed --with-mmalloc
2425
2426Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2427conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2428
3cc87ec0
MK
2429* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2430
2431The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2432the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2433and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2434you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2435
f0424ef6
MK
2436* Revised SPARC target
2437
2438The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2439FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2440support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2441from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2442(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2443
59659be2
ILT
2444* New C++ demangler
2445
2446GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2447names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2448with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2449programs.
2450
9e08b29b
DJ
2451* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2452
2453GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2454arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2455encountered these.
2456
8dfe8985
DC
2457* C++ nested types and namespaces
2458
2459GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2460improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2461is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2462Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2463namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2464"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2465frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2466if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2467GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2468
cced5e27
MK
2469* New native configurations
2470
2471NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2472OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2473OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2474OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2475OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2476
b4b4b794
KI
2477* New debugging protocols
2478
2479M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2480
7989c619
AC
2481* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2482
2483The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2484and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2485tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2486
5994185b
AC
2487* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2488
2489Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2490been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2491configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2492permanently REMOVED.
2493
2494Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2495Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2496Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2497Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2498Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2499AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2500Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2501decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2502riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2503sonymips mips-sony-*
2504sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2505
0ddabb4c
AC
2506* REMOVED configurations and files
2507
2508SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2509SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2510Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2511Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2512H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2513HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2514HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2515HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2516PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2517386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2518Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2519 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2520 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2521SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2522SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2523Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2524Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2525
c7f1390e
DJ
2526*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2527
1fe43d45
AC
2528* Objective-C
2529
2530Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2531integrated into GDB.
2532
e6beb428
AC
2533* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2534
2535DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2536information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2537By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2538backtraces.
2539
2540The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2541have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2542DWARF 2 CFI support.
2543
2544* Hosted file I/O.
2545
2546GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2547file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2548remote protocol documentation for details.
2549
2550* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2551
2552All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2553architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2554to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2555ppc32 on ppc64).
2556
2557* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2558
2559GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2560per-thread variables.
2561
2562* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2563
2564GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2565GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2566
2567* Separate debug info.
2568
2569GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2570automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2571of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2572system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2573and optional debug files.
2574
2575* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2576
2577DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2578describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2579debugger.
2580
2581GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2582for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2583
2584* Java
2585
2586A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2587Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2588considered "useable".
2589
85f8f974
DJ
2590* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2591
2592The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2593commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2594kernel.
2595
0fac0b41
DJ
2596* GDB supports logging output to a file
2597
2598There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2599used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2600
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2601* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2602
2603The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2604disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2605command.
2606
e286caf2 2607* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2608
2609The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2610registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2611
d28f9cdf
DJ
2612* Profiling support
2613
2614A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2615be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2616session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2617"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2618data, for more informative profiling results.
2619
da0f9dcd
AC
2620* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2621
2622The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2623option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2624"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2625
2626Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2627removed.
2628
fb9b6b35
JJ
2629Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2630Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2631Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2632 in a subsequent -var-update.
2633
954a4db8
MK
2634* New native configurations.
2635
2636FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2637
6760f9e6
JB
2638* Multi-arched targets.
2639
b4263afa 2640HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2641Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2642
1b831c93
AC
2643* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2644
2645Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2646been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2647configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2648permanently REMOVED.
2649
8b0e5691 2650Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2651Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2652H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2653HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2654HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2655HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2656PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2657Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2658 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2659 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2660Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2661Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2662
5835abe7
NC
2663* REMOVED configurations and files
2664
2665V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2666Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2667IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2668i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2669i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2670i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2671HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2672 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2673 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2674Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2675Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2676Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2677OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2678I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2679
a094c6fb
AC
2680* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2681
2682The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2683the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2684context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2685address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2686The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2687
299ffc64 2688*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2689
46248966
AC
2690* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2691
2692When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2693`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2694in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2695library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2696shared libs like mad''.
2697
b9d14705 2698* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2699
b9d14705
DJ
2700Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2701the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2702arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2703powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2704
e0e9281e
JB
2705* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2706
2707GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2708and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2709they expand.
2710
dd73b9bb
AC
2711The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2712invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2713
2714The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2715macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2716
e0e9281e
JB
2717Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2718information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2719your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2720information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2721
2250ee0c
CV
2722* Multi-arched targets.
2723
6e3ba3b8
JT
2724DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2725DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2726NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2727National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2728Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2729Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2730
cd9bfe15 2731* New targets.
e33ce519 2732
456f8b9d
DB
2733Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2734
e33ce519 2735
da8ca43d
JT
2736* New native configurations
2737
2738Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2739SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2740MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2741UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2742
cd9bfe15
AC
2743* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2744
2745Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2746been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2747configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2748permanently REMOVED.
2749
92eb23c5 2750Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2751OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2752IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2753Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2754Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2755Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2756i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2757i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2758i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2759HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2760 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2761 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2762I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2763
db034ac5
AC
2764* OBSOLETE languages
2765
2766CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2767
cd9bfe15
AC
2768* REMOVED configurations and files
2769
2770AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2771A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2772AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2773AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2774AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2775
2776testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2777
20f01a46
DH
2778* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2779
2780This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2781commands. The default is 1024.
2782
a5941fbf
MK
2783* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2784
2785Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2786
89743e04
MS
2787* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2788
2789These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2790to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2791from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2792
9fb14e79
JB
2793* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2794
2795The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2796including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2797of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2798
2037aebb
AC
2799*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2800
2801* New targets.
2802
2803Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2804
2805* Bug fixes
2806
2807gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2808mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2809Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2810
2811gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2812dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2813Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2814
2815Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2816Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2817By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2818
2819i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2820avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2821By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2822
37057839 2823*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2824
1a703748
MS
2825* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2826
2827This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2828really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2829In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2830target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2831This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2832(notably embedded) targets.
2833
cefd4ef5
MS
2834* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2835
55241689
AC
2836This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2837process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2838GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2839hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2840
352ed7b4
MS
2841* New command line option
2842
2843GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2844
2845* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2846
2847There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2848command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2849a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2850be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2851open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2852issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2853a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2854it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2855GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2856is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2857
fe419ffc
RE
2858* Changes in ARM configurations.
2859
2860Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2861configuration is fully multi-arch.
2862
eb7cedd9
MK
2863* New native configurations
2864
fe419ffc 2865ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2866x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2867AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2868Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2869
c9f63e6b
CV
2870* New targets
2871
2872Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2873
9b4ff276
AC
2874* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2875
2876Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2877been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2878configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2879permanently REMOVED.
2880
2881AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2882A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2883AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2884AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2885AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2886
b4ceaee6 2887testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2888
e2caac18
AC
2889* REMOVED configurations and files
2890
2891TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2892WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2893PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2894PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2895PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2896Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2897Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2898 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2899SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2900Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2901Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2902ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2903Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2904
c2a727fa
TT
2905* Changes to command line processing
2906
2907The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2908for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2909
467d8519
TT
2910* Changes to key bindings
2911
2912There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2913
7072a954
AC
2914*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2915
2916Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2917
2918Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2919corrupted.
2920
2921Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2922
2923Numerous documentation fixes.
2924
2925Numerous testsuite fixes.
2926
34f47bc4 2927*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2928
2929* New native configurations
2930
2931Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2932x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2933MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2934MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2935ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2936s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2937
bf64bfd6
AC
2938* New targets
2939
def90278 2940Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2941CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2942UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2943
17e78a56 2944* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2945
2946x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2947Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2948Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2949 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2950TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2951WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2952Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2953PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2954PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2955PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2956SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2957Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2958ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2959Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2960
17e78a56
AC
2961stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2962kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2963
7fcca85b
AC
2964Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2965been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2966configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2967permanently REMOVED.
2968
a196c81c 2969* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2970
2971Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2972Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2973Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2974ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2975Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2976ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2977
6d6b80e5 2978* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2979
6d6b80e5 2980GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2981sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2982present.
2983
bf64bfd6
AC
2984* Other news:
2985
e23194cb
EZ
2986* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2987
2988* The MI enabled by default.
2989
2990The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2991revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2992engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2993using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2994which is now deprecated.
2995
2996* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2997
2998GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2999main features are supported:
3000
3001 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3002
3003 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3004 extension;
3005
3006 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3007
3008 - a Pascal expression parser.
3009
3010However, some important features are not yet supported.
3011
3012 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3013
3014 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3015
3016 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3017 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3018
3019 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3020
3021 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3022
3023* Changes in completion.
3024
3025Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3026to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3027users expect at the shell prompt.
3028
3029Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3030`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3031program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3032files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3033be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3034considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3035name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3036
3037`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3038
3039* New platform-independent commands:
3040
3041It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3042hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3043documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3044
3045* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3046
d7275149
MK
3047Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3048revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3049many threads as your system allows you to have.
3050
e23194cb
EZ
3051Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3052
d7275149
MK
3053Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3054multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3055
3056* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3057
3058Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3059
e23194cb
EZ
3060GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3061debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3062supported.)
3063
3064* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3065
3066Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3067breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3068implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3069put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3070and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3071registers.
3072
3073The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3074debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3075watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3076
3077* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3078
3079New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3080the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3081
3082New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3083display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3084IDT.
3085
3086New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3087from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3088New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3089a given linear address.
3090
3091GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3092program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3093which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3094
3095DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3096
6c56c069
EZ
3097It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3098
e23194cb
EZ
3099* Changes in documentation.
3100
3101All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3102Documentation License.
3103
3104Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3105manual.
3106
3107TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3108
3109Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3110manual.
3111
3112The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3113documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3114hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3115
5d6640b1
AC
3116* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3117
3118The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3119``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3120contents of this file.
3121
1a1d8446
AC
3122* gdba.el deleted
3123
3124GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3125
9debab2f 3126*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3127
c63ce875
EZ
3128* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3129
3130Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3131programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3132displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3133greater level of detail.
3134
3135* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3136
3137It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3138bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3139on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3140written.
3141
3142* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3143
3144The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3145necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3146machines ``out of the box''.
3147
3148The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3149possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3150signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3151would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3152interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3153
3154It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3155standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3156even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3157and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3158terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3159
3160The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3161enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3162also works.
3163
3164DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3165GDB.
3166
3167It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3168directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3169times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3170breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3171
ed9a39eb
JM
3172* New native configurations
3173
3174ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3175PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3176
7a292a7a
SS
3177* New targets
3178
96baa820 3179Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3180x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3181PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3182TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3183
085dd6e6
JM
3184* OBSOLETE configurations
3185
3186Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3187Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3188Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3189ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3190Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3191
9debab2f
AC
3192Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3193but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3194these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3195be permanently REMOVED.
3196
5330533d
SS
3197* Gould support removed
3198
3199Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3200
bc9e5bbf
AC
3201* New features for SVR4
3202
3203On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3204without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3205load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3206
3207* Many C++ enhancements
3208
3209C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3210in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3211
adf40b2e
JM
3212* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3213
3214A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3215sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3216with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3217``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3218
3219 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3220 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3221
43e526b9
JM
3222* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3223
3224A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3225expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3226instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3227
3228The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3229added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3230
96baa820
JM
3231* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3232
3233The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3234``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3235include ``set remote P-packet''.
3236
11cf8741
JM
3237* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3238
3239The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3240accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3241``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3242
7876dd43
DB
3243* ``apropos'' command added.
3244
3245The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3246documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3247try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3248
bc9e5bbf
AC
3249* New MI interface
3250
3251A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3252interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3253process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3254"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3255enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3256
3257 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3258
c906108c
SS
3259*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3260
3261* New native configurations
3262
3263HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3264HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3265M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3266
3267* New targets
3268
3269Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3270Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3271Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3272
3273* OBSOLETE configurations
3274
3275Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3276
3277Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3278but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3279these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3280be permanently REMOVED.
3281
3282* ANSI/ISO C
3283
3284As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3285buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3286containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3287use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3288available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3289configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3290information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3291already.
3292
3293* Readline 2.2
3294
3295GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3296
3297* set extension-language
3298
3299You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3300languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3301you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3302 set extension-language .c c++
3303The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3304and their associated languages.
3305
3306* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3307
3308When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3309you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3310PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3311
3312 set processor NAME
3313
3314sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3315following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3316
3317 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3318 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3319 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3320 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3321 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3322 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3323 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3324 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3325 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3326 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3327 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3328
3329At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3330special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3331registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3332only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3333
3334* HP-UX support
3335
3336Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3337more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3338library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3339support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3340for xdb and dbx commands.
3341
3342* Catchpoints
3343
3344HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3345generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3346to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3347
3348This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3349argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3350output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3351
3352* Debugging across forks
3353
3354On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3355in the inferior.
3356
3357* TUI
3358
3359HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3360it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3361configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3362
3363* GDB remote protocol additions
3364
3365A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3366Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3367fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3368allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3369
3370For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3371full 64-bit address. The command
3372
3373 set remoteaddresssize 32
3374
3375can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3376the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3377will be discarded.
3378
3379In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3380command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3381
3382 maint packet heythere
3383
3384sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3385disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3386time.
3387
3388The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3389target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3390downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3391
3392* Tracing can collect general expressions
3393
3394You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3395further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3396doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3397
3398* mask-address variable for Mips
3399
3400For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3401a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3402of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3403
3404* Higher serial baud rates
3405
3406GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3407230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3408to achieve all of these rates.)
3409
3410* i960 simulator
3411
3412The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3413builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3414
3415
3416*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3417
3418* New native configurations
3419
3420Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3421Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3422Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3423PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3424PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3425Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3426Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3427
3428* New targets
3429
3430Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3431Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3432Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3433Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3434MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3435MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3436MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3437Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3438Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3439Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3440NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3441
3442* New debugging protocols
3443
3444ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3445M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3446DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3447PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3448PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3449Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3450
3451* DWARF 2
3452
3453All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3454format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3455information.
3456
3457* Java frontend
3458
3459GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3460only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3461
3462* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3463
3464For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3465loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3466locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3467
3468* Live range splitting
3469
3470GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3471range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3472more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3473
3474* Hurd support
3475
3476GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3477updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3478
3479* ARM Thumb support
3480
3481GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3482instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3483instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3484accordingly.
3485
3486* MIPS16 support
3487
3488GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3489instruction set.
3490
3491* Overlay support
3492
3493GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3494linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3495will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3496control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3497additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3498in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3499
3500* info symbol
3501
3502The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3503the symbol at the specified address.
3504
3505* Trace support
3506
3507The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3508asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3509extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3510includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3511file tracepoint.c for more details.
3512
3513* MIPS simulator
3514
3515Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3516by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3517of most MIPS variants.
3518
3519* Sparc simulator
3520
3521Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3522by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3523Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3524
3525* set architecture
3526
3527For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3528basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3529architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3530the possible architectures.
3531
3532*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3533
3534* New native configurations
3535
3536Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3537M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3538PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3539PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3540PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3541RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3542
3543* New targets
3544
3545ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3546I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3547MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3548MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3549PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3550Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3551Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3552
3553* PowerPC simulator
3554
3555The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3556contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3557PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3558basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3559performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3560
3561* Solaris 2.5
3562
3563GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3564
3565* Windows 95/NT native
3566
3567GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3568To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3569which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3570Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3571ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3572
3573* dont-repeat command
3574
3575If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3576command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3577useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3578extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3579
3580* Send break instead of ^C
3581
3582The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3583rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3584GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3585
3586* Remote protocol timeout
3587
3588The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3589that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3590to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3591
3592* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3593
3594By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3595loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3596stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3597when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3598in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3599
3600Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3601/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3602automatically on hpux10.
3603
3604* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3605
3606Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3607
3608* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3609
3610When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3611may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3612the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3613every character. The default value is 1050.
3614
3615* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3616
3617If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3618a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3619replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3620details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3621remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3622to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3623
3624* Speedups for remote debugging
3625
3626GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3627the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3628and more efficient S-record downloading.
3629
3630* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3631
3632GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3633Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3634
3635*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3636
3637* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3638
3639The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3640can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3641
3642* Remote targets use caching
3643
3644Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3645remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3646it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3647debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3648off' turns the the data cache off.
3649
3650* Remote targets may have threads
3651
3652The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3653in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3654gdb/remote.c for details.
3655
3656* NetROM support
3657
3658If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3659support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3660acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3661write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3662support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3663another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3664sequence is something like
3665
3666 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3667 load <prog>
3668 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3669
3670* Macintosh host
3671
3672GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3673may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3674it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3675available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3676device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3677directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3678scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3679mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3680
3681* Autoconf
3682
3683GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3684but does simplify configuration and building.
3685
3686* hpux10
3687
3688GDB now supports hpux10.
3689
3690*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3691
3692* New native configurations
3693
3694x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3695x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3696NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3697Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3698
3699* New targets
3700
3701A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3702HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3703CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3704PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3705WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3706
3707* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3708
3709GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3710possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3711filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3712the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3713if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3714
3715* Arguments to user-defined commands
3716
3717User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3718Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3719trivial example:
3720define adder
3721 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3722
3723To execute the command use:
3724adder 1 2 3
3725
3726Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3727Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3728use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3729
3730* New `if' and `while' commands
3731
3732This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3733commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3734expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3735execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3736terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3737`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3738if the expression is zero.
3739
3740* Fortran source language mode
3741
3742GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3743Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3744variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3745with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3746Fortran compilers.
3747
3748* Better HPUX support
3749
3750Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3751running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3752processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3753for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3754that behavior do the following before running the program:
3755
3756 adb -w a.out
3757 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3758 control-d
3759
3760This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3761To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3762
3763 adb -w a.out
3764 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3765 control-d
3766
3767You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3768the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3769external linkage.
3770
3771GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3772HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3773
3774* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3775
3776You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3777commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3778current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3779"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3780associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3781configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3782
3783* New DOS host serial code
3784
3785This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3786no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3787a PC's serial port.
3788
3789*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3790
3791* New "complete" command
3792
3793This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3794were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3795
3796* Trailing space optional in prompt
3797
3798"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3799allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3800
3801* Breakpoint hit counts
3802
3803"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3804has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3805can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3806to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3807less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3808that breakpoint.
3809
3810* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3811
3812"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3813an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3814arrays actually contain only short strings.
3815
3816* Shared library breakpoints
3817
3818In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3819breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3820
3821* Hardware watchpoints
3822
3823There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3824targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3825
55241689 3826Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3827
3828* Annotations
3829
3830Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3831and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3832
3833* Improved Irix 5 support
3834
3835GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3836
3837* Improved HPPA support
3838
3839GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3840
3841* New native configurations
3842
3843Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3844HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3845Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3846RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3847
3848* New targets
3849
3850OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3851MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3852Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3853
3854* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3855
3856There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3857This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3858
3859* Fixes
3860
3861As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3862and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3863
3864*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3865
3866* Irix 5 is now supported
3867
3868* HPPA support
3869
3870GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3871to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3872GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3873of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3874can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3875
3876
3877*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3878
3879* User visible changes:
3880
3881* Remote Debugging
3882
3883The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3884target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3885debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3886integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3887debugging info for the mips target).
3888
3889* DEC Alpha native support
3890
3891GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3892debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3893work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3894Alpha-specific notes.
3895
3896* Preliminary thread implementation
3897
3898GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3899
3900* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3901
3902This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3903to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3904for details).
3905
3906* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3907
3908This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3909mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3910call methods, ...etc.
3911
3912*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3913
3914 * User visible changes:
3915
3916Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3917supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3918other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3919somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3920
3921Filename completion now works.
3922
3923When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3924arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3925addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3926
3927All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3928vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3929should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3930your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3931to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3932
3933 * DEC alpha support
3934
3935This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3936cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3937
3938
3939*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3940
3941 * Testsuite
3942
3943This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3944The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3945via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3946
3947 * C++ demangling
3948
3949'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3950emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3951Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3952disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3953use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3954
3955 * Simulators
3956
3957GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3958So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3959Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3960
3961 * New targets supported
3962
3963H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3964H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3965SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3966Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3967IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3968
3969Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3970version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3971GO32 memory extender.
3972
3973 * New remote protocols
3974
3975MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3976
3977 * New source languages supported
3978
3979This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3980used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3981into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3982
3983
3984*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3985
3986 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3987
3988GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3989version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3990University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3991compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3992format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3993(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3994
3995Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3996
3997 * Faster and better demangling
3998
3999We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4000demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4001character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4002only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4003This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4004increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4005symbol lookups.
4006
4007`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4008from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4009compiler does not actually implement.
4010
4011 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4012
4013In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4014inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4015recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4016very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4017The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4018circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4019fix.
4020
4021The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4022release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4023
4024 * Improved configure script
4025
4026The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4027you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4028host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4029done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4030
4031We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4032version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4033`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4034The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4035only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4036We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4037
4038 * Documentation improvements
4039
4040There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4041produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4042before submitting changes.
4043
4044The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4045M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4046`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4047you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4048a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4049
4050*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4051We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4052been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4053or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4054`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4055around this problem.
4056
4057 * New features
4058
4059GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4060the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4061`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4062the target program.
4063
4064The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4065how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4066
4067 * New native hosts supported
4068
4069HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4070386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4071
4072 * New targets supported
4073
4074AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4075
4076 * New file formats supported
4077
4078BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4079HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4080
4081 * Major bug fixes
4082
4083Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4084
4085We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4086printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4087
4088We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4089for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4090release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4091
4092You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4093will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4094
4095We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4096for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4097especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4098libraries.
4099
4100The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4101information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4102command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4103any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4104when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4105
4106 * Internal improvements
4107
4108GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4109debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4110
4111GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4112Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4113symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4114contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4115shared code that handles any of them.
4116
4117 * New command line options
4118
4119We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4120
4121 * Mmalloc licensing
4122
4123The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4124General Public License.
4125
4126*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4127
4128 * Host/native/target split
4129
4130GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4131hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4132target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4133local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4134ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4135
4136The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4137GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4138is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4139code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4140any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4141built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4142handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4143
4144GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4145It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4146plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4147
4148 * New hosts supported
4149
4150HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4151386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4152386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4153
4154 * New targets supported
4155
4156Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
415768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4158
4159 * New native hosts supported
4160
4161386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4162 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4163386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4164
4165 * New file formats supported
4166
4167BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4168supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4169format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4170
4171 * New commands
4172
4173`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4174`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4175These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4176
4177`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4178
4179You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4180scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4181prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4182executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4183
4184 * C++ improvements
4185
4186We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4187info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4188symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4189
4190Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4191
4192 * Major bug fixes
4193
4194The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4195fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4196by the compiler.
4197
4198We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4199support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4200
4201John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4202slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4203that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4204purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4205the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4206mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4207
4208Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4209about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4210completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4211we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4212
4213 * AMD 29k support
4214
4215A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4216specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4217calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4218usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4219in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4220
4221We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4222Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4223of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4224resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4225
4226 * Remote interfaces
4227
4228We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4229with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4230message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4231This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4232needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4233breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4234each instruction being stepped through.
4235
4236The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4237registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4238
4239There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4240find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4241Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4242processor with a serial port.
4243
4244 * Configuration
4245
4246Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4247`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4248supported, and what files each one uses.
4249
4250 * Library changes
4251
4252There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4253disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4254Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4255disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4256
4257The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4258Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4259can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4260grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4261
4262 * Documentation
4263
4264The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4265reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4266as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4267encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4268system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4269bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4270
4271And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4272
4273
4274*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4275
4276 * Better support for C++ function names
4277
4278GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4279names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4280(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4281single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4282Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4283
4284GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4285the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4286You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4287lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4288for the list of formats.
4289
4290 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4291
4292Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4293C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4294directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4295can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4296usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4297about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4298this problem.)
4299
4300 * New 'maintenance' command
4301
4302All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4303the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4304can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4305
4306 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4307 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4308 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4309 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4310 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4311 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4312
4313The following commands are new:
4314
4315 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4316 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4317 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4318
4319 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4320
4321We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4322(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4323be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4324read after argv processing.
4325
4326 * New hosts supported
4327
4328Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4329
55241689 4330GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4331
4332We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4333is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4334for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4335masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4336fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4337It costs extra.
4338
4339 * New targets supported
4340
4341Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4342
4343 * More smarts about finding #include files
4344
4345GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4346all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4347greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4348especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4349the one that contains your sources.
4350
4351We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4352breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4353try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4354
4355 * Interesting infernals change
4356
4357GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4358section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4359target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4360stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4361
4362 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4363
4364There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4365 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4366 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4367
4368See the ChangeLog for details.
4369
4370*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4371
4372 * New machines supported (host and target)
4373
4374IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4375
4376SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4377
4378 * New malloc package
4379
4380GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4381Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4382capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4383This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4384pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4385more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4386
4387 * info proc
4388
4389The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4390'help info proc' for details.
4391
4392 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4393
4394The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4395Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4396possible.
4397
4398 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4399
4400Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4401support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4402conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4403environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4404that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4405in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4406
4407 * Cross byte order fixes
4408
4409Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4410targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4411
4412 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4413
4414If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4415system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4416`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4417program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4418called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4419Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4420and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4421the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4422option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4423starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4424
4425You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4426the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4427information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4428slower, but makes future operations faster.
4429
4430The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4431build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4432A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4433use is:
4434
4435 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4436
4437The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4438It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4439shared across multiple host platforms.
4440
4441 * longjmp() handling
4442
4443GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4444siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4445all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4446platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4447
4448 * Solaris 2.0
4449
4450Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4451this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4452reading symbols.
4453
4454 * Bug fixes
4455
4456As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4457People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4458crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4459
4460*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4461
4462 * New machines supported (host and target)
4463
4464SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4465 (except core files)
4466BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4467Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4468
4469 * New machines supported (target)
4470
4471AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4472
4473 * C++ support
4474
4475GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4476The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4477per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4478
4479GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4480`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4481extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4482good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4483will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4484released.
4485
4486 * New features for SVR4
4487
4488GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4489shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4490only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4491
4492The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4493on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4494it prints the address mappings of the process.
4495
4496If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4497bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4498
4499 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4500
4501Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4502now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4503skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4504make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4505same code linked statically.
4506
4507 * New Getopt
4508
4509GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4510version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4511continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4512Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4513added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4514future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4515
4516 * Bugs fixed
4517
4518The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4519Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4520See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4521
4522
4523*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4524
4525 * New machines supported (host and target)
4526
4527Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4528NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4529Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4530
4531 * Almost SCO Unix support
4532
4533We had hoped to support:
4534SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4535(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4536that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4537about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4538
4539 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4540
4541GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4542debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4543is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4544send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4545reqired (if any).
4546
4547 * New Readline
4548
4549GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4550is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4551required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4552
4553 * Bugs fixed
4554
4555The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4556Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4557See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4558
4559 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4560
4561GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4562supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4563symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4564
4565Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4566mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4567debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4568mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4569version 2.
4570
4571Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4572really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4573line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4574variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4575situation somewhat.
4576
4577When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4578However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4579methods.
4580
4581We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4582DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4583encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4584
4585
4586*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4587
4588 * Improved configuration
4589
4590Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4591Porting BFD is simpler.
4592
4593 * Stepping improved
4594
4595The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4596of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4597in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4598function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4599
4600 * Bug fixing
4601
4602Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4603
4604 * New host supported (not target)
4605
4606Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4607
4608
4609*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4610
4611 * Multiple source language support
4612
4613GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4614It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4615and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4616language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4617You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4618`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4619
4620 * GDB and Modula-2
4621
4622GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4623currently under development at the State University of New York at
4624Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4625continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4626
4627Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4628debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4629symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4630
4631There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4632in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4633
4634 * set write on/off
4635
4636GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4637a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4638the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4639by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4640effect immediately.
4641
4642 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4643
4644When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4645shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4646The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4647examining core files.
4648
4649 * set listsize
4650
4651You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4652The default is 10.
4653
4654 * New machines supported (host and target)
4655
4656SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4657Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4658Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4659
4660 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4661
4662IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4663
4664 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4665
4666AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4667AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4668Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4669
4670 * New remote interfaces
4671
4672AMD 29000 Adapt
4673AMD 29000 Minimon
4674
4675
4676*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4677
4678 * New Facilities
4679
4680Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4681
4682Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4683target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4684is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4685remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4686remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4687also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4688using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4689stub on the target system.
4690
4691New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4692
4693GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4694library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4695object file types such as a.out and coff.
4696
4697There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4698refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4699
4700
4701 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4702
4703All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4704by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4705
4706For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4707``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4708Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4709
4710What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4711print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4712will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4713all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4714
4715confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4716 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4717 it is already running. Default is ON.
4718
4719editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4720 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4721 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4722 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4723 Default is ON.
4724
4725history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4726 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4727 or the value of the environment variable
4728 GDBHISTFILE.
4729
4730history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4731 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4732 HISTSIZE.
4733
4734history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4735 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4736 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4737
4738history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4739 history expansion will be performed on
4740 command line input. The default is OFF.
4741
4742radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4743 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4744 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4745
4746height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4747 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4748 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4749 variable TERM.
4750
4751width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4752 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4753 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4754 variable TERM.
4755
4756Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4757``set width'' instead.
4758
4759print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4760 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4761 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4762 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4763
4764print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4765 is OFF.
4766
4767print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4768 "raw" form if off.
4769
4770print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4771 like instructions.
4772
4773print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4774
4775
4776 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4777
4778The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4779new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4780are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4781window.
4782
4783
4784 * Support for Shared Libraries
4785
4786GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4787Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4788before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4789happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4790At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4791from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4792shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4793It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4794
4795sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4796 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4797 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4798
4799info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4800
4801
4802 * Watchpoints
4803
4804A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4805expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4806tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4807quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4808problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4809more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4810
4811watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4812
4813info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4814
4815delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4816disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4817enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4818
4819
4820 * C++ multiple inheritance
4821
4822When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4823for C++ programs.
4824
4825 * C++ exception handling
4826
4827Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4828ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4829the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4830handler's context).
4831
4832catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4833 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4834 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4835
4836info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4837 current stack frame.
4838
4839
4840 * Minor command changes
4841
4842The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4843command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4844is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4845
4846The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4847at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4848frames without printing.
4849
4850 * New directory command
4851
4852'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4853The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4854about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4855with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4856find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4857
4858 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4859
4860For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4861for more details.
4862
4863GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4864two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4865Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4866where the program that you are debugging will run.