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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.2:
5
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6* ``gdbserver'' now supports multithreaded applications on some targets
7
8Support for multithreaded applications using LinuxThreads has been added
9for arm*-*-linux*, i[3456]86-*-linux*, mips*-*-linux*, powerpc*-*-linux*,
10and sh*-*-linux*.
11
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12* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
13
14GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
15and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
16they expand.
17
18Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
19information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
20your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
21information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
22
23Here are the new commands for working with macros:
24
25** macro expand EXPRESSION
26
27Expand any macro invocations in expression, and show the result.
28
29** show macro MACRO-NAME
30
31Show the definition of the macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was
32defined.
33
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34* Multi-arched targets.
35
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36DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
37DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 38NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 39National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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40Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
41Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 42
cd9bfe15 43* New targets.
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44
45Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
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46Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
47
e33ce519 48
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49* New native configurations
50
51Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 52SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 53MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 54UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 55
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56* OBSOLETE configurations and files
57
58Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
59been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
60configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
61permanently REMOVED.
62
92eb23c5 63Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7a3085c1 64Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
92eb23c5 65
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66* REMOVED configurations and files
67
68AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
69A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
70AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
71AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
72AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
73
74testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
75
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76* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
77
78This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
79commands. The default is 1024.
80
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81* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
82
83Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
84
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85* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
86
87These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
88to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
89from a file into memory (restore).
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90
91*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
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93* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
94
95This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
96really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
97In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
98target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
99This can be a significant performance improvement on some
100(notably embedded) targets.
101
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102* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
103
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104This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
105process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
106GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
107hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 108
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109* New command line option
110
111GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
112
113* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
114
115There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
116command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
117a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
118be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
119open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
120issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
121a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
122it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
123GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
124is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
125
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126* Changes in ARM configurations.
127
128Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
129configuration is fully multi-arch.
130
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131* New native configurations
132
fe419ffc 133ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 134x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 135AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 136Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 137
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138* New targets
139
140Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
141
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142* OBSOLETE configurations and files
143
144Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
145been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
146configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
147permanently REMOVED.
148
149AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
150A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
151AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
152AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
153AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
154
b4ceaee6 155testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 156
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157* REMOVED configurations and files
158
159TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 160WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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161PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
162PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
163PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 164Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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165Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
166 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 167SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 168Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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169Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
170ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 171Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 172
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173* Changes to command line processing
174
175The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
176for the inferior from gdb's command line.
177
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178* Changes to key bindings
179
180There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
181
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182*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
183
184Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
185
186Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
187corrupted.
188
189Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
190
191Numerous documentation fixes.
192
193Numerous testsuite fixes.
194
34f47bc4 195*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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196
197* New native configurations
198
199Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
200x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 201MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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202MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
203ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 204s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 205
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206* New targets
207
def90278 208Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 209CRIS cris-axis
55241689 210UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 211
17e78a56 212* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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213
214x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 215Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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216Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
217 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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218TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
219WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 220Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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221PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
222PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
223PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 224SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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225Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
226ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 227Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 228
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229stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
230kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
231
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232Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
233been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
234configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
235permanently REMOVED.
236
a196c81c 237* REMOVED configurations and files
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238
239Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
240Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
241Pyramid pyramid-*-*
242ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
243Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 244ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 245
6d6b80e5 246* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 247
6d6b80e5 248GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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249sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
250present.
251
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252* Other news:
253
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254* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
255
256* The MI enabled by default.
257
258The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
259revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
260engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
261using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
262which is now deprecated.
263
264* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
265
266GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
267main features are supported:
268
269 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
270
271 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
272 extension;
273
274 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
275
276 - a Pascal expression parser.
277
278However, some important features are not yet supported.
279
280 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
281
282 - there are some problems with boolean types;
283
284 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
285 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
286
287 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
288
289 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
290
291* Changes in completion.
292
293Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
294to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
295users expect at the shell prompt.
296
297Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
298`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
299program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
300files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
301be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
302considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
303name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
304
305`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
306
307* New platform-independent commands:
308
309It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
310hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
311documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
312
313* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
314
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315Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
316revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
317many threads as your system allows you to have.
318
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319Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
320
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321Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
322multi-threaded programs though.
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323
324* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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325
326Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
327
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328GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
329debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
330supported.)
331
332* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
333
334Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
335breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
336implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
337put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
338and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
339registers.
340
341The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
342debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
343watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
344
345* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
346
347New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
348the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
349
350New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
351display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
352IDT.
353
354New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
355from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
356New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
357a given linear address.
358
359GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
360program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
361which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
362
363DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
364
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365It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
366
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367* Changes in documentation.
368
369All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
370Documentation License.
371
372Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
373manual.
374
375TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
376
377Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
378manual.
379
380The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
381documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
382hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
383
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384* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
385
386The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
387``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
388contents of this file.
389
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390* gdba.el deleted
391
392GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 393
9debab2f 394*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 395
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396* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
397
398Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
399programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
400displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
401greater level of detail.
402
403* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
404
405It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
406bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
407on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
408written.
409
410* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
411
412The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
413necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
414machines ``out of the box''.
415
416The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
417possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
418signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
419would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
420interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
421
422It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
423standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
424even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
425and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
426terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
427
428The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
429enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
430also works.
431
432DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
433GDB.
434
435It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
436directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
437times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
438breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
439
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440* New native configurations
441
442ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 443PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 444
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445* New targets
446
96baa820 447Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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448x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
449PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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450TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
451
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452* OBSOLETE configurations
453
454Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
455Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 456Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 457ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 458Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 459
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460Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
461but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
462these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
463be permanently REMOVED.
464
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465* Gould support removed
466
467Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
468
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469* New features for SVR4
470
471On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
472without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
473load symbols from the running process's executable file.
474
475* Many C++ enhancements
476
477C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
478in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
479
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480* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
481
482A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
483sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
484with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
485``|<program> <args>'' vis:
486
487 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
488 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
489
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490* MIPS 64 remote protocol
491
492A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
493expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
494instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
495
496The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
497added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
498
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499* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
500
501The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
502``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
503include ``set remote P-packet''.
504
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505* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
506
507The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
508accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
509``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
510
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511* ``apropos'' command added.
512
513The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
514documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
515try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
516
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517* New MI interface
518
519A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
520interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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521process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
522"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
523enabled by configuring with:
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524
525 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
526
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527*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
528
529* New native configurations
530
531HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
532HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 533M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
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534
535* New targets
536
537Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
538Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
539Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
540
541* OBSOLETE configurations
542
543Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
544
545Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
546but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
547these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
548be permanently REMOVED.
549
550* ANSI/ISO C
551
552As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
553buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
554containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
555use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
556available. If this is not true, please report the affected
557configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
558information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
559already.
560
561* Readline 2.2
562
563GDB now uses readline 2.2.
564
565* set extension-language
566
567You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
568languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
569you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
570 set extension-language .c c++
571The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
572and their associated languages.
573
574* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
575
576When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
577you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
578PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
579
580 set processor NAME
581
582sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
583following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
584
585 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
586 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
587 403 IBM PowerPC 403
588 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
589 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
590 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
591 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
592 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
593 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
594 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
595 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
596
597At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
598special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
599registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
600only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
601
602* HP-UX support
603
604Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
605more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
606library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
607support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
608for xdb and dbx commands.
609
610* Catchpoints
611
612HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
613generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
614to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
615
616This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
617argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
618output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
619
620* Debugging across forks
621
622On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
623in the inferior.
624
625* TUI
626
627HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
628it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
629configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
630
631* GDB remote protocol additions
632
633A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
634Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
635fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
636allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
637
638For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
639full 64-bit address. The command
640
641 set remoteaddresssize 32
642
643can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
644the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
645will be discarded.
646
647In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
648command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
649
650 maint packet heythere
651
652sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
653disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
654time.
655
656The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
657target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
658downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
659
660* Tracing can collect general expressions
661
662You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
663further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
664doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
665
666* mask-address variable for Mips
667
668For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
669a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
670of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
671
672* Higher serial baud rates
673
674GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
675230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
676to achieve all of these rates.)
677
678* i960 simulator
679
680The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
681builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
682
683
684*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
685
686* New native configurations
687
688Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
689Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
690Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
691PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
692PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
693Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
694Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
695
696* New targets
697
698Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
699Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
700Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
701Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
702MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
703MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
704MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
705Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
706Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
707Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
708NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
709
710* New debugging protocols
711
712ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
713M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
714DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
715PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
716PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
717Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
718
719* DWARF 2
720
721All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
722format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
723information.
724
725* Java frontend
726
727GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
728only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
729
730* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
731
732For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
733loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
734locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
735
736* Live range splitting
737
738GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
739range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
740more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
741
742* Hurd support
743
744GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
745updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
746
747* ARM Thumb support
748
749GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
750instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
751instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
752accordingly.
753
754* MIPS16 support
755
756GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
757instruction set.
758
759* Overlay support
760
761GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
762linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
763will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
764control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
765additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
766in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
767
768* info symbol
769
770The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
771the symbol at the specified address.
772
773* Trace support
774
775The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
776asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
777extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
778includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
779file tracepoint.c for more details.
780
781* MIPS simulator
782
783Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
784by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
785of most MIPS variants.
786
787* Sparc simulator
788
789Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
790by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
791Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
792
793* set architecture
794
795For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
796basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
797architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
798the possible architectures.
799
800*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
801
802* New native configurations
803
804Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
805M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
806PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
807PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
808PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
809RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
810
811* New targets
812
813ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
814I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
815MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
816MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
817PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
818Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
819Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
820
821* PowerPC simulator
822
823The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
824contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
825PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
826basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
827performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
828
829* Solaris 2.5
830
831GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
832
833* Windows 95/NT native
834
835GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
836To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
837which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
838Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
839ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
840
841* dont-repeat command
842
843If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
844command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
845useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
846extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
847
848* Send break instead of ^C
849
850The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
851rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
852GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
853
854* Remote protocol timeout
855
856The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
857that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
858to read from the target. The default value is 2.
859
860* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
861
862By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
863loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
864stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
865when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
866in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
867
868Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
869/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
870automatically on hpux10.
871
872* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
873
874Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
875
876* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
877
878When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
879may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
880the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
881every character. The default value is 1050.
882
883* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
884
885If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
886a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
887replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
888details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
889remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
890to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
891
892* Speedups for remote debugging
893
894GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
895the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
896and more efficient S-record downloading.
897
898* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
899
900GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
901Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
902
903*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
904
905* Psymtabs for XCOFF
906
907The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
908can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
909
910* Remote targets use caching
911
912Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
913remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
914it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
915debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
916off' turns the the data cache off.
917
918* Remote targets may have threads
919
920The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
921in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
922gdb/remote.c for details.
923
924* NetROM support
925
926If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
927support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
928acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
929write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
930support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
931another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
932sequence is something like
933
934 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
935 load <prog>
936 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
937
938* Macintosh host
939
940GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
941may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
942it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
943available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
944device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
945directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
946scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
947mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
948
949* Autoconf
950
951GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
952but does simplify configuration and building.
953
954* hpux10
955
956GDB now supports hpux10.
957
958*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
959
960* New native configurations
961
962x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
963x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
964NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
965Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
966
967* New targets
968
969A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
970HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
971CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
972PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
973WDC 65816 w65-*-*
974
975* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
976
977GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
978possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
979filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
980the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
981if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
982
983* Arguments to user-defined commands
984
985User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
986Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
987trivial example:
988define adder
989 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
990
991To execute the command use:
992adder 1 2 3
993
994Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
995Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
996use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
997
998* New `if' and `while' commands
999
1000This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1001commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1002expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1003execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1004terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1005`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1006if the expression is zero.
1007
1008* Fortran source language mode
1009
1010GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1011Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1012variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1013with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1014Fortran compilers.
1015
1016* Better HPUX support
1017
1018Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1019running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1020processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1021for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1022that behavior do the following before running the program:
1023
1024 adb -w a.out
1025 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1026 control-d
1027
1028This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1029To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1030
1031 adb -w a.out
1032 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1033 control-d
1034
1035You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1036the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1037external linkage.
1038
1039GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1040HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1041
1042* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1043
1044You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1045commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1046current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1047"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1048associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1049configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1050
1051* New DOS host serial code
1052
1053This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1054no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1055a PC's serial port.
1056
1057*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1058
1059* New "complete" command
1060
1061This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1062were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1063
1064* Trailing space optional in prompt
1065
1066"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1067allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1068
1069* Breakpoint hit counts
1070
1071"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1072has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1073can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1074to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1075less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1076that breakpoint.
1077
1078* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1079
1080"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1081an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1082arrays actually contain only short strings.
1083
1084* Shared library breakpoints
1085
1086In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1087breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1088
1089* Hardware watchpoints
1090
1091There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1092targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1093
55241689 1094Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1095
1096* Annotations
1097
1098Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1099and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1100
1101* Improved Irix 5 support
1102
1103GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1104
1105* Improved HPPA support
1106
1107GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1108
1109* New native configurations
1110
1111Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1112HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1113Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1114RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1115
1116* New targets
1117
1118OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1119MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1120Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1121
1122* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1123
1124There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1125This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1126
1127* Fixes
1128
1129As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1130and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1131
1132*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1133
1134* Irix 5 is now supported
1135
1136* HPPA support
1137
1138GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1139to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1140GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1141of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1142can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1143
1144
1145*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1146
1147* User visible changes:
1148
1149* Remote Debugging
1150
1151The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1152target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1153debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1154integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1155debugging info for the mips target).
1156
1157* DEC Alpha native support
1158
1159GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1160debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1161work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1162Alpha-specific notes.
1163
1164* Preliminary thread implementation
1165
1166GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1167
1168* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1169
1170This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1171to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1172for details).
1173
1174* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1175
1176This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1177mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1178call methods, ...etc.
1179
1180*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1181
1182 * User visible changes:
1183
1184Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1185supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1186other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1187somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1188
1189Filename completion now works.
1190
1191When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1192arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1193addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1194
1195All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1196vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1197should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1198your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1199to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1200
1201 * DEC alpha support
1202
1203This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1204cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1205
1206
1207*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1208
1209 * Testsuite
1210
1211This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1212The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1213via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1214
1215 * C++ demangling
1216
1217'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1218emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1219Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1220disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1221use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1222
1223 * Simulators
1224
1225GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1226So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1227Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1228
1229 * New targets supported
1230
1231H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1232H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1233SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1234Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1235IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1236
1237Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1238version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1239GO32 memory extender.
1240
1241 * New remote protocols
1242
1243MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1244
1245 * New source languages supported
1246
1247This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1248used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1249into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1250
1251
1252*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1253
1254 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1255
1256GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1257version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1258University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1259compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1260format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1261(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1262
1263Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1264
1265 * Faster and better demangling
1266
1267We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1268demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1269character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1270only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1271This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1272increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1273symbol lookups.
1274
1275`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1276from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1277compiler does not actually implement.
1278
1279 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1280
1281In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1282inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1283recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1284very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1285The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1286circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1287fix.
1288
1289The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1290release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1291
1292 * Improved configure script
1293
1294The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1295you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1296host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1297done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1298
1299We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1300version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1301`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1302The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1303only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1304We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1305
1306 * Documentation improvements
1307
1308There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1309produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1310before submitting changes.
1311
1312The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1313M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1314`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1315you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1316a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1317
1318*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1319We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1320been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1321or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1322`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1323around this problem.
1324
1325 * New features
1326
1327GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1328the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1329`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1330the target program.
1331
1332The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1333how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1334
1335 * New native hosts supported
1336
1337HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1338386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1339
1340 * New targets supported
1341
1342AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1343
1344 * New file formats supported
1345
1346BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1347HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1348
1349 * Major bug fixes
1350
1351Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1352
1353We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1354printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1355
1356We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1357for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1358release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1359
1360You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1361will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1362
1363We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1364for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1365especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1366libraries.
1367
1368The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1369information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1370command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1371any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1372when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1373
1374 * Internal improvements
1375
1376GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1377debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1378
1379GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1380Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1381symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1382contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1383shared code that handles any of them.
1384
1385 * New command line options
1386
1387We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1388
1389 * Mmalloc licensing
1390
1391The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1392General Public License.
1393
1394*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1395
1396 * Host/native/target split
1397
1398GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1399hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1400target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1401local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1402ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1403
1404The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1405GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1406is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1407code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1408any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1409built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1410handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1411
1412GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1413It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1414plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1415
1416 * New hosts supported
1417
1418HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1419386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1420386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1421
1422 * New targets supported
1423
1424Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
142568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1426
1427 * New native hosts supported
1428
1429386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1430 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1431386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1432
1433 * New file formats supported
1434
1435BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1436supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1437format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1438
1439 * New commands
1440
1441`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1442`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1443These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1444
1445`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1446
1447You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1448scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1449prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1450executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1451
1452 * C++ improvements
1453
1454We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1455info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1456symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1457
1458Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1459
1460 * Major bug fixes
1461
1462The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1463fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1464by the compiler.
1465
1466We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1467support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1468
1469John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1470slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1471that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1472purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1473the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1474mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1475
1476Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1477about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1478completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1479we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1480
1481 * AMD 29k support
1482
1483A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1484specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1485calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1486usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1487in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1488
1489We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1490Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1491of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1492resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1493
1494 * Remote interfaces
1495
1496We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1497with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1498message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1499This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1500needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1501breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1502each instruction being stepped through.
1503
1504The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1505registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1506
1507There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1508find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1509Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1510processor with a serial port.
1511
1512 * Configuration
1513
1514Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1515`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1516supported, and what files each one uses.
1517
1518 * Library changes
1519
1520There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1521disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1522Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1523disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1524
1525The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1526Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1527can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1528grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1529
1530 * Documentation
1531
1532The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1533reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1534as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1535encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1536system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1537bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1538
1539And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1540
1541
1542*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1543
1544 * Better support for C++ function names
1545
1546GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1547names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1548(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1549single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1550Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1551
1552GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1553the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1554You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1555lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1556for the list of formats.
1557
1558 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1559
1560Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1561C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1562directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1563can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1564usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1565about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1566this problem.)
1567
1568 * New 'maintenance' command
1569
1570All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1571the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1572can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1573
1574 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1575 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1576 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1577 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1578 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1579 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1580
1581The following commands are new:
1582
1583 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1584 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1585 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1586
1587 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1588
1589We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1590(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1591be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1592read after argv processing.
1593
1594 * New hosts supported
1595
1596Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1597
55241689 1598GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1599
1600We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1601is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1602for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1603masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1604fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1605It costs extra.
1606
1607 * New targets supported
1608
1609Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1610
1611 * More smarts about finding #include files
1612
1613GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1614all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1615greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1616especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1617the one that contains your sources.
1618
1619We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1620breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1621try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1622
1623 * Interesting infernals change
1624
1625GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1626section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1627target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1628stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1629
1630 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1631
1632There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1633 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1634 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1635
1636See the ChangeLog for details.
1637
1638*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1639
1640 * New machines supported (host and target)
1641
1642IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1643
1644SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1645
1646 * New malloc package
1647
1648GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1649Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1650capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1651This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1652pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1653more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1654
1655 * info proc
1656
1657The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1658'help info proc' for details.
1659
1660 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1661
1662The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1663Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1664possible.
1665
1666 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1667
1668Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1669support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1670conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1671environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1672that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1673in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1674
1675 * Cross byte order fixes
1676
1677Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1678targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1679
1680 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1681
1682If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1683system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1684`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1685program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1686called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1687Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1688and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1689the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1690option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1691starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1692
1693You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1694the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1695information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1696slower, but makes future operations faster.
1697
1698The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1699build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1700A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1701use is:
1702
1703 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1704
1705The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1706It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1707shared across multiple host platforms.
1708
1709 * longjmp() handling
1710
1711GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1712siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1713all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1714platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1715
1716 * Solaris 2.0
1717
1718Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1719this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1720reading symbols.
1721
1722 * Bug fixes
1723
1724As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1725People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1726crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1727
1728*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1729
1730 * New machines supported (host and target)
1731
1732SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1733 (except core files)
1734BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1735Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1736
1737 * New machines supported (target)
1738
1739AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1740
1741 * C++ support
1742
1743GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1744The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1745per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1746
1747GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1748`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1749extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1750good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1751will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1752released.
1753
1754 * New features for SVR4
1755
1756GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1757shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1758only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1759
1760The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1761on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1762it prints the address mappings of the process.
1763
1764If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1765bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1766
1767 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1768
1769Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1770now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1771skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1772make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1773same code linked statically.
1774
1775 * New Getopt
1776
1777GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1778version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1779continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1780Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1781added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1782future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1783
1784 * Bugs fixed
1785
1786The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1787Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1788See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1789
1790
1791*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1792
1793 * New machines supported (host and target)
1794
1795Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1796NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1797Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1798
1799 * Almost SCO Unix support
1800
1801We had hoped to support:
1802SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1803(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1804that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1805about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1806
1807 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1808
1809GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1810debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1811is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1812send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1813reqired (if any).
1814
1815 * New Readline
1816
1817GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1818is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1819required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1820
1821 * Bugs fixed
1822
1823The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1824Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1825See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1826
1827 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1828
1829GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1830supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1831symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1832
1833Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1834mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1835debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1836mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1837version 2.
1838
1839Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1840really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1841line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1842variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1843situation somewhat.
1844
1845When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1846However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1847methods.
1848
1849We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1850DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1851encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1852
1853
1854*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1855
1856 * Improved configuration
1857
1858Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1859Porting BFD is simpler.
1860
1861 * Stepping improved
1862
1863The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1864of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1865in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1866function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1867
1868 * Bug fixing
1869
1870Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1871
1872 * New host supported (not target)
1873
1874Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1875
1876
1877*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1878
1879 * Multiple source language support
1880
1881GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1882It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1883and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1884language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1885You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1886`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1887
1888 * GDB and Modula-2
1889
1890GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1891currently under development at the State University of New York at
1892Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1893continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1894
1895Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1896debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1897symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1898
1899There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1900in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1901
1902 * set write on/off
1903
1904GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1905a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1906the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1907by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1908effect immediately.
1909
1910 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1911
1912When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1913shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1914The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1915examining core files.
1916
1917 * set listsize
1918
1919You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1920The default is 10.
1921
1922 * New machines supported (host and target)
1923
1924SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1925Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1926Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1927
1928 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1929
1930IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1931
1932 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1933
1934AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1935AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1936Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1937
1938 * New remote interfaces
1939
1940AMD 29000 Adapt
1941AMD 29000 Minimon
1942
1943
1944*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1945
1946 * New Facilities
1947
1948Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1949
1950Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1951target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1952is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1953remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1954remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1955also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1956using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1957stub on the target system.
1958
1959New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1960
1961GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1962library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1963object file types such as a.out and coff.
1964
1965There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1966refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1967
1968
1969 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1970
1971All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1972by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1973
1974For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1975``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1976Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1977
1978What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1979print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1980will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1981all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1982
1983confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1984 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1985 it is already running. Default is ON.
1986
1987editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1988 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1989 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1990 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1991 Default is ON.
1992
1993history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1994 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1995 or the value of the environment variable
1996 GDBHISTFILE.
1997
1998history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1999 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2000 HISTSIZE.
2001
2002history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2003 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2004 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2005
2006history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2007 history expansion will be performed on
2008 command line input. The default is OFF.
2009
2010radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2011 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2012 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2013
2014height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2015 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2016 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2017 variable TERM.
2018
2019width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2020 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2021 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2022 variable TERM.
2023
2024Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2025``set width'' instead.
2026
2027print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2028 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2029 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2030 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2031
2032print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2033 is OFF.
2034
2035print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2036 "raw" form if off.
2037
2038print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2039 like instructions.
2040
2041print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2042
2043
2044 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2045
2046The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2047new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2048are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2049window.
2050
2051
2052 * Support for Shared Libraries
2053
2054GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2055Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2056before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2057happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2058At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2059from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2060shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2061It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2062
2063sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2064 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2065 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2066
2067info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2068
2069
2070 * Watchpoints
2071
2072A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2073expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2074tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2075quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2076problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2077more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2078
2079watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2080
2081info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2082
2083delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2084disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2085enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2086
2087
2088 * C++ multiple inheritance
2089
2090When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2091for C++ programs.
2092
2093 * C++ exception handling
2094
2095Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2096ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2097the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2098handler's context).
2099
2100catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2101 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2102 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2103
2104info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2105 current stack frame.
2106
2107
2108 * Minor command changes
2109
2110The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2111command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2112is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2113
2114The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2115at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2116frames without printing.
2117
2118 * New directory command
2119
2120'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2121The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2122about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2123with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2124find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2125
2126 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2127
2128For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2129for more details.
2130
2131GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2132two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2133Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2134where the program that you are debugging will run.