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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
d6e00af6 5
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6* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
7 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
8 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
9 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
10 inferior changes.
11
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12* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
13 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
14
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15* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
16 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
17 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
18 target hardware watchpoint.
19
20 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
21 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
22 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
23 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
24
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25* Python scripting
26
32d1c362 27 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 28 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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29 existing one.
30
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31 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
32 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
33 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
34 "off".
35
baacfb07 36 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 37 Python API.
713389e0 38
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39 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
40 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 41 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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42 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
43 corresponding value.
44
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45 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
46 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
47 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
48 on GDB start-up.
49
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50 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
51 static_block will return the global and static blocks
52 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
53 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
54
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55 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
56
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57 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
58 "gdb.breakpoints".
59
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60 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
61 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
62 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
63 "some_type.items()".
64
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65 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
66 new object file.
67
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68 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
69 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
70 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
71 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
72 any anonymous fields.
73
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74* MI changes
75
76 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
77 "solib-event".
78
79 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
80 "=breakpoint-modified".
81
82 ** New command -ada-task-info.
83
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84* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
85 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
86 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
87 lives.
88
89 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
90 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
91 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
92 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
93 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
94
95 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
96 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
97
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98* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
99 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
100 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
101 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
102 use this option to specify where to find it.
103
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104* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
105 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
106 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
107 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
108 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
109 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
110 section in the user manual for more details.
111
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112* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
113 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
114 become available after that.
115
71eba9c2 116* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 117
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118* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
119 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
120 gcc version 4.7.
121
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122* New commands
123
124!SHELL COMMAND
125 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
126 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
127
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128* Changed commands
129
130watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
131 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
132 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
133
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134info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
135 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
136 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
137
71eba9c2 138info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
139 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
140 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
141 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
142 name starts with a hyphen.
143
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144collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
145 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
146 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
147 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
148 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
149 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
150 number of bytes that will be collected.
151
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152tstart [NOTES]
153 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
154 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
155 setting the variable trace-notes.
156
157tstop [NOTES]
158 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
159 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
160 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
161 trace-stop-notes.
162
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163* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
164 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
165 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
166 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
167 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
168 is running.
169
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170* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
171 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
172 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
173
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174* New options
175
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176set extended-prompt
177show extended-prompt
178 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
179 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
180 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
181 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
182 prompt is displayed.
183
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184set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
185show print entry-values
186 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
187 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
188 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
189
190set debug entry-values
191show debug entry-values
192 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
193 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
194
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195set basenames-may-differ
196show basenames-may-differ
197 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
198 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
199 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
200 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
201 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
202 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
203 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
204 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
205
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206set trace-user
207show trace-user
208set trace-notes
209show trace-notes
210 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
211 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
212 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
213 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
214
215set trace-stop-notes
216show trace-stop-notes
217 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
218 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
219 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
220 started by someone else.
221
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222* New remote packets
223
224QTEnable
225
226 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
227
228QTDisable
229
230 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
231
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232QTNotes
233
234 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
235
236qTP
237
238 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
239
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240qTMinFTPILen
241
242 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
243 be placed.
244
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245* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
246 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
247
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248* New targets
249
250Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
251
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252* New Simulators
253
254Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
255
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256*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
257
258* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
259
d6e00af6 260*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 261
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262* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
263 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
264 matches the given regular expression.
265
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266* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
267
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268* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
269 dumping the instruction opcodes.
270
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271* New command line options
272
273-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
274 This is mostly for testing purposes.
275
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276* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
277 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
278
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279* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
280 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
281 source path list instead of augmenting it.
282
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283* GDB now understands thread names.
284
285 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
286 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
287
288 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
289 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
290
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291* OpenCL C
292 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
293 has been integrated into GDB.
294
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295* Python scripting
296
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297 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
298 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
299 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
300
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301 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
302 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
303 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
304 and allows for more dynamic content.
305
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306 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
307 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
308 have an is_valid method.
309
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310 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
311 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
312 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
313
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314 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
315
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316 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
317 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
318 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
319 that function like so:
320
321 result = some_value (10,20)
322
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323 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
324 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
325 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
326
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327 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
328 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
329 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
330 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
331 New function: register_pretty_printer.
332
333 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
334 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
335
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336 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
337
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338 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
339 selected thread.
340
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341 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
342 holds the thread's name.
343
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344 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
345 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 346 occurring in the process being debugged.
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347 The following events are currently supported:
348 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
349 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
350 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
351
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352* C++ Improvements:
353
354 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
355 instantiation. For example, if you have:
356
357 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
358
359 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
360 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
361 was added to GCC 4.5.
362
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363 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
364 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
365 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
366 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
367 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
368 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
369
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370* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
371 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
372 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
373 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
374 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
375
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376* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
377 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
378 execution to a label.
379
380* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
381 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
382 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
383 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
384
b56df873 385* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 386 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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387 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
388 of scope.
389
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390* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
391
392 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
393 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
394 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
395 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
396 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
397 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
398
399 (gdb) info threads
400 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
401
402 While now you see this:
403
404 (gdb) info threads
405 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
406
407 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
408 dumps.
409
410 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
411 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
412 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
413 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
414
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415* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
416 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
417 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
418 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
419 section in the user manual for more details.
420
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421* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
422
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423 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
424 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 425
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426 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
427
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428* New native configurations
429
430ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
431
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432* New targets:
433
434Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
435
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436* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
437 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
438 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
439 in the GDB user manual.
440
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441* Guile support was removed.
442
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443* New features in the GNU simulator
444
445 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
446
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447 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
448
76b8507d 449*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 450
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451* Shared library support for remote targets by default
452
453 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
454 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
455 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
456 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
457 was always disabled for such configurations.
458
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459* C++ Improvements:
460
461 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
462
463 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
464 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
465 For example:
466 namespace A
467 {
468 class B { };
469 void foo (B) { }
470 }
471 ...
472 A::B b
473 foo(b)
474 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
475 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
476 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
477
478 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
479
480 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
481 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
482 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
483 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
484 entry.
485 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
486 mentioned flavors of operators.
487
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488 ** static const class members
489
490 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
491 class definition has been fixed.
492
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493* Windows Thread Information Block access.
494
495 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
496 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
497 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
498 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
499 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
500 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
501
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502* Static tracepoints
503
504 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
505 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
506 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
507 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
508 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
509 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
510 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
511 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
512 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
513 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
514 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
515 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
516 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
517 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
518 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
519 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
520 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
521 the "New remote packets" section below.
522
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523* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
524
525 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
526 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
527 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
528 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
529
530* Observer mode
531
532 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
533 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
534 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
535 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
536 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
537 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
538 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
539
540* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
541 current thread.
542
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543* New remote packets
544
545qGetTIBAddr
546
547 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
548
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549qRelocInsn
550
551 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
552 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
553 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
554 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
555 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
556 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
557
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558qTfSTM, qTsSTM
559
560 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
561
562qTSTMat
563
564 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
565 program.
566
567qXfer:statictrace:read
568
569 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
570 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
571 to gdb's qSupported query.
572
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573QAllow
574
575 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
576
577QTDPsrc
578
579 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
580 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
581
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582* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
583 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
584 a directory.
585
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586* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
587
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588 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
589 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
590 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
591 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
592
593 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
594 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
595 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
596 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
597 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
598 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
599 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
600
601 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
602 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 603
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604 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
605
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606* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
607 it understands register description.
608
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609* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
610
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611* X86 general purpose registers
612
613 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
614 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
615 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
616 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
617 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
618
95a42b64 619* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
620 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
621 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
622 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
623 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
624 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 625
8bd10a10
CM
626* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
627 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
628 in the specified file.
629
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PA
630* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
631 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
632 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
633 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
634 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
635 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
636 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
637 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
638 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
639 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
640
6149aea9
PA
641* New commands
642
f1421989
HZ
643eval template, expressions...
644 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
645 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
646
ab38a727
PA
647set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
648show target-file-system-kind
649 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
650 names.
651
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PA
652save breakpoints <filename>
653 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
654 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
655 definitions, use the `source' command.
656
657`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
658is now deprecated.
659
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PA
660info static-tracepoint-markers
661 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
662
663strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
664 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
665 function, line, address, or marker ID.
666
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SS
667set observer on|off
668show observer
669 Enable and disable observer mode.
670
671set may-write-registers on|off
672set may-write-memory on|off
673set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
674set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
675set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
676set may-interrupt on|off
677 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
678 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
679 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
680 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
681 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
682 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
683 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
684
685set record memory-query on|off
686show record memory-query
687 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
688 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
689
53a71c06
CR
690* Changed commands
691
692disassemble
693 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
694
f3e9a817
PM
695* Python scripting
696
9279c692
JB
697** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
698 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
699 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
700 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
701 GDB using Python' in the manual.
702
adc36818 703** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
704 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
705 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
706 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 707
fa33c3cd 708** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
709 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
710
711** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
712
713** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 714
967cf477
DE
715** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
716
8a1ea21f
DE
717** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
718 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
719 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
720
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VP
721* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
722there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
723tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
724regular breakpoints.
725
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PA
726* New targets
727
728ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
729
6aecb9c2
JB
730* D language support.
731 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
732 language.
733
431e49aa
TJB
734* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
735 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
736 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
737 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
738 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
739
740* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
741 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
742 conditions of the form:
743
744 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
745
746 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
747 interface mentioned above.
748
bfbf3774 749*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 750
4eef138c
TT
751* C++ Improvements
752
753 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
754
755 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
756 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
757 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
758 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
759 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
760
4eef138c
TT
761 ** Bug Fixes
762
763 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
764 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
765 qualified name.
766
767 ** Cast Operators
768
769 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
770 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
771
2d1c1221
ME
772* New targets
773
774Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 775Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
776
777* New Simulators
778
779Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 780Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 781
6c95b8df
PA
782* Multi-program debugging.
783
784 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
785 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
786 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
787 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
788 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
789 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
790 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
791 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
792
d5551862
SS
793* New tracing features
794
795 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
796
797 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
798
799 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
800 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
801 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
802 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
803 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
804 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
805 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
806 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
807 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
808 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 809
d5551862 810 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
811
812 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
813 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
814 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
815 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
816 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
817 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
818 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
819 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
820 the regular trace command.
821
d5551862
SS
822 ** Disconnected tracing
823
824 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
825 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
826 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
827 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
828 connection is lost unexpectedly.
829
00bf0b85
SS
830 ** Trace files
831
832 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
833 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
834 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
835 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
836 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
837 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
838 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
839
840 ** Circular trace buffer
841
842 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
843 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
844 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
845 not be available for all target agents.
846
21a0512e
PP
847* Changed commands
848
849disassemble
850 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
851 the arguments to be comma-separated.
852
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DJ
853info variables
854 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
855 which only declare a variable are not shown.
856
fb2e7cb4
JB
857source
858 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
859 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
860 support.
861
862 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
863 "set script-extension" (see below).
864
6c95b8df
PA
865* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
866
399cd161
MS
867record save [<FILENAME>]
868 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
869 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
870
871record restore <FILENAME>
872 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
873 earlier time, for replay debugging.
874
6c95b8df
PA
875add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
876 Add a new inferior.
877
878clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
879 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
880 inferior has loaded.
881
882remove-inferior ID
883 Remove an inferior.
884
885maint info program-spaces
886 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
887
9a7071a8
JB
888set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
889show remote interrupt-sequence
890 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
891 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
892 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
893 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
894 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
895
896set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
897show remote interrupt-on-connect
898 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
899 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
900 Linux kernel.
901
902set remotebreak [on | off]
903show remotebreak
904Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
905
f61e138d
SS
906tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
907 Create or modify a trace state variable.
908
909info tvariables
910 List trace state variables and their values.
911
912delete tvariable $NAME ...
913 Delete one or more trace state variables.
914
6da95a67
SS
915teval EXPR, ...
916 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
917 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
918
7a697b8d
SS
919ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
920 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
921
b0f02ee9
JK
922* New expression syntax
923
924 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
925 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
926
6c95b8df
PA
927* New options
928
929set follow-exec-mode new|same
930show follow-exec-mode
931 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
932 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
933 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
934
236f1d4d
SS
935set default-collect EXPR, ...
936show default-collect
937 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
938 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
939 such as registers or a critical global variable.
940
d5551862
SS
941set disconnected-tracing
942show disconnected-tracing
943 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
944 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
945 upon disconnection.
946
4daf5ac0
SS
947set circular-trace-buffer
948show circular-trace-buffer
949 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
950 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
951 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
952 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
953
fb2e7cb4
JB
954set script-extension off|soft|strict
955show script-extension
956 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
957 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
958 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
959 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
960 evaluation failed.
961 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
962
2b71fc8e
JB
963set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
964show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
965 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
966 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
967 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
968 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
969 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
970 is on.
971
de2e5182
TT
972* Python API Improvements
973
974 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
975 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
976 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
977
978 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
979 `is_base_class' attribute.
980
981 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
982
983 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
984 evaluate an expression.
985
f61e138d
SS
986* New remote packets
987
988QTDV
989 Define a trace state variable.
990
991qTV
992 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
993
d5551862
SS
994QTDisconnected
995 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
996
4daf5ac0
SS
997QTBuffer:circular
998 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
999
d5551862
SS
1000qTfP, qTsP
1001 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1002
2d483d34
MS
1003* Bug fixes
1004
1005Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1006
6e0e5977
JB
1007Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1008much more reliable. In particular:
1009 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1010 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1011 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1012 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1013 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1014 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1015 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1016 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1017 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1018 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1019 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1020 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1021 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1022 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1023 non-threaded programs.
1024
93c26624
JK
1025PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1026This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1027libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1028executable program.
1029
abc7453d 1030*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1031
4efc6507
DE
1032* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1033dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1034them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1035for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1036"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1037
782b2b07
SS
1038* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1039breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1040or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1041the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1042for tracepoint actions.
1043
53a71c06
CR
1044* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1045raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1046modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1047
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1048* Process record and replay
1049
1050 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1051 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1052 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1053 execute commands.
1054
64644d9b
MS
1055* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1056step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1057set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1058reverse execution.
1059
b9412953
DD
1060* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1061feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
10622.6.28 or later.
1063
6c7a06a3
TT
1064* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1065target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1066char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1067literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1068U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1069`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1070system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1071the installation instructions for more information.
1072
f1838a98
UW
1073* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1074remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1075with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1076the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1077
55333a84
DE
1078* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1079and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1080
7f6a6314
PM
1081* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1082now complete on file names.
1083
65d12d83
TT
1084* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1085completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1086For instance, consider:
1087
1088 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1089 # struct example variable;
1090 (gdb) p variable.
1091
1092If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1093completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1094
edb3359d
DJ
1095* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1096the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1097
2fae03e8
TT
1098* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1099operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1100macros.
1101
47a3467a 1102* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1103the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1104implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1105
1106* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1107registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1108can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1109and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1110
08388c79
DE
1111* New remote packets
1112
1113qSearch:memory:
1114 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1115
a6f3e723
SL
1116QStartNoAckMode
1117 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1118 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1119 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1120
d7713ae0
EZ
1121vKill
1122 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1123 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1124
07e059b5
VP
1125qXfer:osdata:read
1126 Obtains additional operating system information
1127
47a3467a
PA
1128qXfer:siginfo:read
1129qXfer:siginfo:write
1130 Read or write additional signal information.
1131
060871df
PA
1132* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1133
1134 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1135 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1136 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1137
c055b101 1138* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1139DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1140
1141* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1142and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1143`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1144
31fffb02
CS
1145* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1146with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1147
88d8a8e0
JB
1148* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1149
7f99b190
JB
1150* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1151
ccd213ac
DJ
1152* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1153which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1154
1fddbabb 1155* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1156list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1157
a0ef4274
DJ
1158* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1159conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1160have also been fixed.
1161
bfb8797a 1162* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1163From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1164are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1165
71c25dea
TT
1166* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1167example, given:
1168
1169 template<typename T> class C { };
1170 C<char const *> c;
1171
1172GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1173
1174 ptype C<char const *>
1175 ptype C<char const*>
1176 ptype C<const char *>
1177 ptype C<const char*>
1178
ccd213ac
DJ
1179* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1180
1181 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1182 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1183
7ae0e2a2
UW
1184 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1185 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1186 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1187
a6f3e723
SL
1188 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1189 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1190
da8bd9a3
DJ
1191 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1192 gdbserver.
1193
d70e31dd
DE
1194 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1195 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1196
1197 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1198 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1199 as appropriate.
1200
d57a3c85
TJB
1201* Python scripting
1202
1203 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1204 available is determined at configure time.
1205
d8906c6f
TJB
1206 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1207
aadc346a
JB
1208* Ada tasking support
1209
1210 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1211 been introduced:
1212
1213 info tasks
1214 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1215 info task N
1216 Print detailed information about task number N.
1217 task
1218 Print the task number of the current task.
1219 task N
1220 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1221
adb483fe
DJ
1222* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1223add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1224
2277426b
PA
1225* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1226
1227 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1228 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1229 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1230 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1231 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1232 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1233 below.
1234
08d16641
PA
1235* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1236"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1237information.
1238
e35359c5
UW
1239* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1240to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1241architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1242See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1243more information.
1244
85e747d2
UW
1245* Multi-architecture debugging.
1246
1247 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1248 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1249 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1250 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1251 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1252
1253* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1254use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1255Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1256powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1257--enable-targets configure option.
1258
11ade57a
PA
1259* Non-stop mode debugging.
1260
1261 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1262 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1263 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1264 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1265 section in the user manual for more information.
1266
1267 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1268 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1269 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1270 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1271 extensions on linux targets.
1272
d7713ae0 1273* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1274
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1275catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1276 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1277 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1278 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1279 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1280 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1281 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1282 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1283 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1284
08388c79
DE
1285find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1286 val1 [, val2, ...]
1287 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1288
d57a3c85
TJB
1289maint set python print-stack
1290maint show python print-stack
1291 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1292
1293python [CODE]
1294 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1295
d7713ae0
EZ
1296macro define
1297macro list
1298macro undef
1299 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1300 interactively.
1301
1302info os processes
1303 Show operating system information about processes.
1304
2277426b
PA
1305info inferiors
1306 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1307
1308inferior NUM
1309 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1310
1311detach inferior NUM
1312 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1313
1314kill inferior NUM
1315 Kill inferior number NUM.
1316
d7713ae0
EZ
1317* New options
1318
3285f3fe
UW
1319set spu stop-on-load
1320show spu stop-on-load
1321 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1322
ff1a52c6
UW
1323set spu auto-flush-cache
1324show spu auto-flush-cache
1325 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1326 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1327
d7713ae0
EZ
1328set sh calling-convention
1329show sh calling-convention
1330 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1331
e0a3ce09 1332set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1333show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1334 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1335
1336set disassemble-next-line
1337show disassemble-next-line
1338 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1339 the debuggee stops.
1340
1341set remote noack-packet
1342show remote noack-packet
1343 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1344 under "New remote packets."
1345
1346set remote query-attached-packet
1347show remote query-attached-packet
1348 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1349
1350set remote read-siginfo-object
1351show remote read-siginfo-object
1352 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1353 packet.
1354
1355set remote write-siginfo-object
1356show remote write-siginfo-object
1357 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1358 packet.
1359
40ab02ce
MS
1360set remote reverse-continue
1361show remote reverse-continue
1362 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1363
1364set remote reverse-step
1365show remote reverse-step
1366 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1367
d7713ae0
EZ
1368set displaced-stepping
1369show displaced-stepping
1370 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1371 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1372 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1373
1374set debug displaced
1375show debug displaced
1376 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1377
1378maint set internal-error
1379maint show internal-error
1380 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1381
1382maint set internal-warning
1383maint show internal-warning
1384 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1385
ccd213ac
DJ
1386set exec-wrapper
1387show exec-wrapper
1388unset exec-wrapper
1389 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1390
aad4b048
JB
1391set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1392show multiple-symbols
1393 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1394 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1395 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1396
74960c60
VP
1397set breakpoint always-inserted
1398show breakpoint always-inserted
1399 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1400 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1401 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1402
0428b8f5
DJ
1403set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1404show arm fallback-mode
1405set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1406show arm force-mode
1407 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1408 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1409 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1410 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1411
10568435
JK
1412set disable-randomization
1413show disable-randomization
1414 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1415 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1416 multiple debugging sessions.
1417
d7713ae0
EZ
1418set non-stop
1419show non-stop
1420 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1421 a breakpoint.
1422
b3eb342c 1423set target-async
d7713ae0 1424show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1425 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1426 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1427 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1428 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1429
6c7a06a3
TT
1430set target-wide-charset
1431show target-wide-charset
1432 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1433 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1434
84603566
SL
1435set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1436show tcp auto-retry
1437set tcp connect-timeout
1438show tcp connect-timeout
1439 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1440 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1441 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1442
17a37d48
PP
1443set libthread-db-search-path
1444show libthread-db-search-path
1445 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1446 libthread_db.
1447
d4db2f36
PA
1448set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1449show schedule-multiple
1450 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1451 the current process.
1452
4e5d721f
DE
1453set stack-cache
1454show stack-cache
1455 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1456 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1457 affecting correctness.
1458
910c5da8
JB
1459set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1460show interactive-mode
1461 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1462 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1463 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1464 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1465 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1466
2277426b
PA
1467* Removed commands
1468
1469info forks
1470 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1471 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1472 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1473 command.
1474
1475fork NUM
1476 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1477 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1478 alias for the `fork' command.
1479
1480process PID
1481 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1482 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1483 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1484
1485delete fork NUM
1486 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1487 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1488 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1489 fork' command.
1490
1491detach fork NUM
1492 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1493 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1494 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1495 fork' command.
1496
a80b95ba
TG
1497* New native configurations
1498
1499x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1500
b8bfd3ed
JB
1501x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1502
75a2d5e7
TT
1503* New targets
1504
c28c63d8 1505Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1506x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1507x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1508S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1509
6de3146c
PA
1510* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1511 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1512
d5cbbe6e
JB
1513* Removed commands
1514
1515catch load
1516catch unload
1517 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1518
75feb17d 1519*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1520
af5ca30d
NH
1521* New native configurations
1522
1523NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1524Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1525
1526* New targets
1527
1528NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1529Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1530
7a404eba
PA
1531* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1532
1533 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1534 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1535 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1536 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1537
430ebac9
PA
1538* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1539(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1540
fe6fbf8b 1541* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1542is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1543
1544* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1545including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1546and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1547
10665d76
JB
1548* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1549accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1550more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1551
7cc46491
DJ
1552* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1553
d71340b8
DJ
1554* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1555registers on PowerPC targets.
1556
523c4513
DJ
1557* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1558targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1559
a6b151f1
DJ
1560* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1561commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1562
2d717e4f
DJ
1563* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1564extended-remote mode.
1565
24a836bd 1566* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1567The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1568error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1569The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1570
d0c678e6
UW
1571* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1572building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1573target architectures.
1574
d64a946d
TJB
1575* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1576Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1577now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1578stored in two consecutive float registers.
1579
ee163bf5
VP
1580* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1581breakpoints now.
1582
b93b6ca7 1583* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1584Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1585include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1586 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1587 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1588 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1589 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1590 of an assignment
1591 - Improved command completion in Ada
1592 - Several bug fixes
1593
d001be7a
DJ
1594* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1595process.
1596
a6b151f1
DJ
1597* New commands
1598
6d53d0af
JB
1599set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1600show print frame-arguments
1601 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1602 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1603
a6b151f1
DJ
1604remote put
1605remote get
1606remote delete
1607 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1608
1609* New MI commands
1610
1611-target-file-put
1612-target-file-get
1613-target-file-delete
1614 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1615
1616* New remote packets
1617
1618vFile:open:
1619vFile:close:
1620vFile:pread:
1621vFile:pwrite:
1622vFile:unlink:
1623 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1624
2d717e4f
DJ
1625vAttach
1626 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1627 mode.
1628
1629vRun
1630 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1631
8d5f9c6f 1632*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1633
19d378fc
MS
1634* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1635bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1636Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1637
3a40aaa0
UW
1638* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1639symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1640-Bsymbolic linker option.
1641
a6ec25f2
BW
1642* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1643recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1644is not supported.
1645
6dd09645
JB
1646* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1647frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1648
c9bb8148
DJ
1649* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
165032-bit or 64-bit register values.
1651
0d5de010
DJ
1652* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1653
23181151
DJ
1654* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1655target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1656a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1657
ea37ba09
DJ
1658* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1659automatically displayed as character or string data.
1660
1661* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1662arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1663as strings.
e1f48ead 1664
123dc839
DJ
1665* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1666for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1667only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1668
05a4558a
DJ
1669* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1670iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1671
7c963485
PA
1672* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1673ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1674has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1675
b18be20d
DJ
1676* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1677
0ca420ce
UW
1678* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1679
31d99776
DJ
1680* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1681layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1682segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1683
a4642986
MR
1684* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1685immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1686
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1687* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1688"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1689packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1690where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1691Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1692
1693* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1694(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1695
1696* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1697according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1698
c9bb8148
DJ
1699* New commands
1700
23776285
MR
1701set remoteflow
1702show remoteflow
1703 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1704 when debugging using remote targets.
1705
c9bb8148
DJ
1706set mem inaccessible-by-default
1707show mem inaccessible-by-default
1708 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1709 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1710 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1711 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1712 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1713
1714set breakpoint auto-hw
1715show breakpoint auto-hw
1716 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1717 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1718 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1719 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1720 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1721 including "next" and "finish".
1722
0e420bd8
JB
1723catch exception
1724catch exception unhandled
1725 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1726
1727catch assert
1728 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1729
f822c95b
DJ
1730set sysroot
1731show sysroot
1732 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1733 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1734 an alias to "set sysroot".
1735
83cc5c53
UW
1736info spu
1737 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1738 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1739 architecture.
1740
bd372731
MK
1741* New native configurations
1742
1743OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1744
23181151
DJ
1745set tdesc filename
1746unset tdesc filename
1747show tdesc filename
1748 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1749 not query the target for its built-in description.
1750
c9bb8148
DJ
1751* New targets
1752
54fe9172 1753OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1754MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1755Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1756
6dd09645
JB
1757* New remote packets
1758
1759QPassSignals:
1760 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1761 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1762
23181151
DJ
1763qXfer:features:read:
1764 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1765 features.
6dd09645 1766
83cc5c53
UW
1767qXfer:spu:read:
1768qXfer:spu:write:
1769 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1770 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1771
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1772qXfer:libraries:read:
1773 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1774 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1775 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1776 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1777
483367ee
DJ
1778* Removed targets
1779
1780Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1781
d08950c4
UW
1782alpha*-*-osf1*
1783alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1784d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1785hppa*-*-hiux*
1786i[34567]86-ncr-*
1787i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1788i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1789i[34567]86-*-netware*
1790i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1791i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1792i[34567]86-*-sco*
1793i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1794i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1795i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1796i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1797i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1798i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1799i[34567]86-*-isc*
1800m68*-cisco*-*
1801m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1802mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1803rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1804sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1805
7ce59000
DJ
1806* Other removed features
1807
1808target abug
1809target cpu32bug
1810target est
1811target rom68k
1812
1813 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1814
ea35711c
DJ
1815target hms
1816target e7000
1817target sh3
1818target sh3e
1819
1820 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1821 H8/300.
1822
1823target ocd
1824
1825 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1826 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1827 interfaces.
1828
7ce59000
DJ
1829DWARF 1 support
1830
1831 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1832 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1833
54d61198
DJ
1834Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1835
1836 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1837 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1838 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1839 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1840
ea35711c
DJ
1841MIPS ".pdr" sections
1842
1843 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1844 in debugging information.
1845
1846Scheme support
1847
1848 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1849 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1850
1a69e1e4
DJ
1851set mips stack-arg-size
1852set mips saved-gpreg-size
1853
1854 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1855
6dd09645 1856*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1857
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1858* New targets
1859
1860Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1861Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1862
6aec2e11
DJ
1863* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1864(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1865running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1866
1867* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1868Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1869supported.
1870
17218d91
DJ
1871* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1872broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1873
9ebce043
DJ
1874* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1875stub provides the required support.
1876
7d3d3ece
DJ
1877* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1878longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1879
4f8253f3
JB
1880* New commands
1881
1882set substitute-path
1883unset substitute-path
1884show substitute-path
1885 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1886 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1887 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1888 between compilation and debugging.
1889
9fa66fd7
AS
1890set trace-commands
1891show trace-commands
1892 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1893 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1894 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1895
1f5befc1
DJ
1896* REMOVED features
1897
1898The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1899
2ec3381a
DJ
1900Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1901an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1902
3d00d119
DJ
1903The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1904
be2a5f71
DJ
1905* New remote packets
1906
1907qSupported:
1908 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1909 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1910 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1911 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1912 target.
1913
0876f84a
DJ
1914qXfer:auxv:read:
1915 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1916 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1917
9ebce043
DJ
1918qXfer:memory-map:read:
1919 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1920 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1921
1922vFlashErase:
1923vFlashWrite:
1924vFlashDone:
1925 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1926
0876f84a
DJ
1927* Removed remote packets
1928
1929qPart:auxv:read:
1930 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1931 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1932
e374b601 1933*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1934
96309189
MS
1935* New targets
1936
1937Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1938
1939Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1940
53e5f3cf
AS
1941* New commands
1942
1943init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1944 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1945
ac264b3b
MS
1946The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1947
1948checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1949
1950restart <n> Return the program state to a
1951 previously saved state.
1952
1953info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1954
1955delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1956
1957set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1958 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1959
1960info forks List forks of the user program that
1961 are available to be debugged.
1962
1963fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1964 forks of the user program that are
1965 available to be debugged.
1966
1967delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1968 that are available to be debugged (and
1969 kill the forked process).
1970
1971detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1972 that are available to be debugged (and
1973 allow the process to continue).
1974
3950dc3f
NS
1975* New architecture
1976
1977Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1978
0ea3f30e
DJ
1979* Improved Windows host support
1980
1981GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1982native console support, and remote communications using either
1983network sockets or serial ports.
1984
f79daebb
GM
1985* Improved Modula-2 language support
1986
1987GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1988basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1989pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1990printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1991written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1992GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1993
acab6ab2
MM
1994* REMOVED features
1995
1996The ARM rdi-share module.
1997
f4267320
DJ
1998The Netware NLM debug server.
1999
53e5f3cf 2000*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2001
e0ecbda1
MK
2002* New native configurations
2003
02a677ac 2004OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2005OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2006
d64a6579
KB
2007* New targets
2008
2009Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2010
b33a6190
AS
2011* New command line options
2012
2013--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2014--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2015 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2016--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2017 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2018 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2019 with the --command (-x) option.
2020
11dced61
AC
2021* Deprecated commands removed
2022
2023The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2024removed:
2025
2026 Command Replacement
2027 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2028 othernames set arm disassembler
2029 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2030 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2031 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2032 regs info registers
2033
6fe85783
MK
2034* New BSD user-level threads support
2035
2036It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2037library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2038configurations are:
2039
2040FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2041FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2042OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2043
2044Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2045are not yet supported.
2046
5260ca71
MS
2047* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2048(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2049
e84ecc99
AC
2050* REMOVED configurations and files
2051
2052VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2053Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2054National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2055
31e35378
JB
2056* New "set print array-indexes" command
2057
2058After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2059when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2060behavior.
2061
e85e5c83
MK
2062* VAX floating point support
2063
2064GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2065
d91e9901
AS
2066* User-defined command support
2067
2068In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2069to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2070section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2071
f2cb65ca
MC
2072*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2073
f47b1503
AS
2074* New command line option
2075
2076GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2077debugging.
2078
f2cb65ca
MC
2079* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2080
2081GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2082information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2083by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2084proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2085to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2086
d08c0230
AC
2087* Internationalization
2088
2089When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2090internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2091continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2092
117ea3cf
PH
2093* Ada
2094
2095Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2096implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2097into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2098
d08c0230
AC
2099* New native configurations
2100
2101GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2102
2103* Remote 'p' packet
2104
2105GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2106packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2107
2108* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2109
2110GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2111The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2112features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2113i386 application).
2114
2115GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2116compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2117continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2118configurations:
2119
2120hppa-*-hpux
2121ia64-*-aix
2122mips-*-irix*
2123*-*-lynx
2124mips-*-linux-gnu
2125sds protocol
2126xdr protocol
2127powerpc bdm protocol
2128
2129Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2130made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2131
2132* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2133
2134Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2135been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2136configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2137permanently REMOVED.
2138
2139h8300-*-*
2140mcore-*-*
2141mn10300-*-*
2142ns32k-*-*
2143sh64-*-*
2144v850-*-*
2145
ebb7c577
AC
2146*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2147
2148* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2149
2150When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2151heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2152been fixed.
2153
2154* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2155
2156When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2157fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2158IRIX long double values).
2159
2160* VAX and "next"
2161
2162A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2163command. This problem has been fixed.
2164
860660cb 2165*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2166
0dea2468
AC
2167* Fix for ``many threads''
2168
2169On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2170rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2171error message:
2172
2173 ptrace: No such process.
2174 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2175
2176This problem has been fixed.
2177
2c07db7a
AC
2178* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2179
2180Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2181GDB to dump core).
2182
c23968a2
JB
2183* New ``start'' command.
2184
2185This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2186
71009278
MK
2187* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2188
2189Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2190live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2191platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2192
2193FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2194FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2195NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2196NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2197NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2198OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2199OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2200OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2201OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2202
3c0b7db2
AC
2203* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2204
2205Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2206These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2207of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2208call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2209signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2210
73cc75f3
AC
2211Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2212features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2213include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2214
7243600a
BF
2215* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2216
6f606e1c
MK
2217* New native configurations
2218
97dc871c 2219GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2220OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2221OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2222OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2223OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2224NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2225OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2226
a1b461bf
AC
2227* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2228
2229GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2230The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2231including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2232migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2233compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2234work, was also included.
2235
2236GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2237module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2238
2239h8300-*-*
2240mcore-*-*
2241mn10300-*-*
2242ns32k-*-*
2243sh64-*-*
2244v850-*-*
2245xstormy16-*-*
2246
2247Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2248made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2249
3c7012f5
AC
2250* REMOVED configurations and files
2251
2252Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2253Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2254Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2255Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2256Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2257AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2258Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2259decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2260riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2261sonymips mips-sony-*
2262sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2263
e5fe55f7
AC
2264*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2265
2266* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2267
2268The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2269GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2270command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2271program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2272with GDB".
2273
2274* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2275
2276Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2277libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2278cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2279GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2280shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2281the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2282are created.
2283
2284Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2285
2286* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2287
2288The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2289non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2290compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2291
2292* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2293
2294Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2295wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2296
2297* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2298
2299The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2300permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2301systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2302
2303* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2304
2305Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2306has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2307
2308* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2309
2310GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2311its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2312panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2313
2314* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2315
2316When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2317by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2318not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2319
faae5abe 2320*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2321
9175c9a3
MC
2322* Removed --with-mmalloc
2323
2324Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2325conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2326
3cc87ec0
MK
2327* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2328
2329The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2330the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2331and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2332you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2333
f0424ef6
MK
2334* Revised SPARC target
2335
2336The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2337FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2338support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2339from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2340(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2341
59659be2
ILT
2342* New C++ demangler
2343
2344GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2345names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2346with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2347programs.
2348
9e08b29b
DJ
2349* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2350
2351GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2352arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2353encountered these.
2354
8dfe8985
DC
2355* C++ nested types and namespaces
2356
2357GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2358improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2359is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2360Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2361namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2362"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2363frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2364if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2365GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2366
cced5e27
MK
2367* New native configurations
2368
2369NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2370OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2371OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2372OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2373OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2374
b4b4b794
KI
2375* New debugging protocols
2376
2377M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2378
7989c619
AC
2379* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2380
2381The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2382and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2383tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2384
5994185b
AC
2385* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2386
2387Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2388been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2389configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2390permanently REMOVED.
2391
2392Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2393Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2394Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2395Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2396Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2397AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2398Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2399decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2400riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2401sonymips mips-sony-*
2402sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2403
0ddabb4c
AC
2404* REMOVED configurations and files
2405
2406SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2407SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2408Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2409Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2410H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2411HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2412HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2413HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2414PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2415386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2416Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2417 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2418 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2419SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2420SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2421Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2422Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2423
c7f1390e
DJ
2424*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2425
1fe43d45
AC
2426* Objective-C
2427
2428Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2429integrated into GDB.
2430
e6beb428
AC
2431* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2432
2433DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2434information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2435By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2436backtraces.
2437
2438The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2439have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2440DWARF 2 CFI support.
2441
2442* Hosted file I/O.
2443
2444GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2445file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2446remote protocol documentation for details.
2447
2448* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2449
2450All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2451architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2452to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2453ppc32 on ppc64).
2454
2455* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2456
2457GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2458per-thread variables.
2459
2460* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2461
2462GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2463GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2464
2465* Separate debug info.
2466
2467GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2468automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2469of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2470system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2471and optional debug files.
2472
2473* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2474
2475DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2476describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2477debugger.
2478
2479GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2480for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2481
2482* Java
2483
2484A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2485Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2486considered "useable".
2487
85f8f974
DJ
2488* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2489
2490The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2491commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2492kernel.
2493
0fac0b41
DJ
2494* GDB supports logging output to a file
2495
2496There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2497used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2498
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2499* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2500
2501The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2502disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2503command.
2504
e286caf2 2505* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2506
2507The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2508registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2509
d28f9cdf
DJ
2510* Profiling support
2511
2512A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2513be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2514session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2515"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2516data, for more informative profiling results.
2517
da0f9dcd
AC
2518* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2519
2520The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2521option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2522"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2523
2524Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2525removed.
2526
fb9b6b35
JJ
2527Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2528Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2529Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2530 in a subsequent -var-update.
2531
954a4db8
MK
2532* New native configurations.
2533
2534FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2535
6760f9e6
JB
2536* Multi-arched targets.
2537
b4263afa 2538HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2539Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2540
1b831c93
AC
2541* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2542
2543Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2544been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2545configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2546permanently REMOVED.
2547
8b0e5691 2548Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2549Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2550H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2551HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2552HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2553HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2554PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2555Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2556 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2557 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2558Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2559Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2560
5835abe7
NC
2561* REMOVED configurations and files
2562
2563V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2564Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2565IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2566i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2567i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2568i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2569HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2570 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2571 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2572Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2573Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2574Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2575OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2576I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2577
a094c6fb
AC
2578* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2579
2580The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2581the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2582context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2583address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2584The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2585
299ffc64 2586*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2587
46248966
AC
2588* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2589
2590When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2591`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2592in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2593library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2594shared libs like mad''.
2595
b9d14705 2596* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2597
b9d14705
DJ
2598Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2599the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2600arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2601powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2602
e0e9281e
JB
2603* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2604
2605GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2606and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2607they expand.
2608
dd73b9bb
AC
2609The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2610invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2611
2612The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2613macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2614
e0e9281e
JB
2615Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2616information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2617your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2618information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2619
2250ee0c
CV
2620* Multi-arched targets.
2621
6e3ba3b8
JT
2622DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2623DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2624NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2625National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2626Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2627Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2628
cd9bfe15 2629* New targets.
e33ce519 2630
456f8b9d
DB
2631Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2632
e33ce519 2633
da8ca43d
JT
2634* New native configurations
2635
2636Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2637SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2638MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2639UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2640
cd9bfe15
AC
2641* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2642
2643Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2644been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2645configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2646permanently REMOVED.
2647
92eb23c5 2648Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2649OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2650IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2651Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2652Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2653Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2654i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2655i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2656i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2657HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2658 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2659 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2660I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2661
db034ac5
AC
2662* OBSOLETE languages
2663
2664CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2665
cd9bfe15
AC
2666* REMOVED configurations and files
2667
2668AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2669A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2670AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2671AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2672AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2673
2674testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2675
20f01a46
DH
2676* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2677
2678This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2679commands. The default is 1024.
2680
a5941fbf
MK
2681* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2682
2683Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2684
89743e04
MS
2685* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2686
2687These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2688to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2689from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2690
9fb14e79
JB
2691* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2692
2693The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2694including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2695of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2696
2037aebb
AC
2697*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2698
2699* New targets.
2700
2701Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2702
2703* Bug fixes
2704
2705gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2706mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2707Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2708
2709gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2710dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2711Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2712
2713Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2714Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2715By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2716
2717i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2718avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2719By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2720
37057839 2721*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2722
1a703748
MS
2723* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2724
2725This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2726really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2727In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2728target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2729This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2730(notably embedded) targets.
2731
cefd4ef5
MS
2732* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2733
55241689
AC
2734This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2735process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2736GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2737hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2738
352ed7b4
MS
2739* New command line option
2740
2741GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2742
2743* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2744
2745There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2746command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2747a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2748be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2749open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2750issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2751a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2752it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2753GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2754is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2755
fe419ffc
RE
2756* Changes in ARM configurations.
2757
2758Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2759configuration is fully multi-arch.
2760
eb7cedd9
MK
2761* New native configurations
2762
fe419ffc 2763ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2764x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2765AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2766Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2767
c9f63e6b
CV
2768* New targets
2769
2770Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2771
9b4ff276
AC
2772* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2773
2774Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2775been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2776configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2777permanently REMOVED.
2778
2779AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2780A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2781AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2782AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2783AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2784
b4ceaee6 2785testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2786
e2caac18
AC
2787* REMOVED configurations and files
2788
2789TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2790WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2791PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2792PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2793PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2794Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2795Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2796 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2797SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2798Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2799Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2800ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2801Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2802
c2a727fa
TT
2803* Changes to command line processing
2804
2805The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2806for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2807
467d8519
TT
2808* Changes to key bindings
2809
2810There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2811
7072a954
AC
2812*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2813
2814Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2815
2816Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2817corrupted.
2818
2819Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2820
2821Numerous documentation fixes.
2822
2823Numerous testsuite fixes.
2824
34f47bc4 2825*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2826
2827* New native configurations
2828
2829Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2830x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2831MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2832MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2833ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2834s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2835
bf64bfd6
AC
2836* New targets
2837
def90278 2838Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2839CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2840UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2841
17e78a56 2842* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2843
2844x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2845Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2846Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2847 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2848TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2849WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2850Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2851PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2852PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2853PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2854SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2855Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2856ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2857Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2858
17e78a56
AC
2859stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2860kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2861
7fcca85b
AC
2862Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2863been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2864configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2865permanently REMOVED.
2866
a196c81c 2867* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2868
2869Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2870Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2871Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2872ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2873Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2874ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2875
6d6b80e5 2876* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2877
6d6b80e5 2878GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2879sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2880present.
2881
bf64bfd6
AC
2882* Other news:
2883
e23194cb
EZ
2884* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2885
2886* The MI enabled by default.
2887
2888The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2889revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2890engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2891using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2892which is now deprecated.
2893
2894* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2895
2896GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2897main features are supported:
2898
2899 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2900
2901 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2902 extension;
2903
2904 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2905
2906 - a Pascal expression parser.
2907
2908However, some important features are not yet supported.
2909
2910 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2911
2912 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2913
2914 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2915 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2916
2917 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2918
2919 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2920
2921* Changes in completion.
2922
2923Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2924to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2925users expect at the shell prompt.
2926
2927Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2928`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2929program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2930files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2931be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2932considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2933name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2934
2935`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2936
2937* New platform-independent commands:
2938
2939It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2940hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2941documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2942
2943* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2944
d7275149
MK
2945Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2946revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2947many threads as your system allows you to have.
2948
e23194cb
EZ
2949Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2950
d7275149
MK
2951Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2952multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2953
2954* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2955
2956Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2957
e23194cb
EZ
2958GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2959debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2960supported.)
2961
2962* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2963
2964Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2965breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2966implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2967put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2968and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2969registers.
2970
2971The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2972debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2973watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2974
2975* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2976
2977New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2978the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2979
2980New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2981display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2982IDT.
2983
2984New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2985from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2986New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2987a given linear address.
2988
2989GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2990program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2991which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2992
2993DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2994
6c56c069
EZ
2995It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2996
e23194cb
EZ
2997* Changes in documentation.
2998
2999All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3000Documentation License.
3001
3002Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3003manual.
3004
3005TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3006
3007Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3008manual.
3009
3010The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3011documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3012hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3013
5d6640b1
AC
3014* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3015
3016The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3017``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3018contents of this file.
3019
1a1d8446
AC
3020* gdba.el deleted
3021
3022GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3023
9debab2f 3024*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3025
c63ce875
EZ
3026* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3027
3028Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3029programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3030displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3031greater level of detail.
3032
3033* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3034
3035It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3036bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3037on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3038written.
3039
3040* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3041
3042The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3043necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3044machines ``out of the box''.
3045
3046The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3047possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3048signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3049would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3050interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3051
3052It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3053standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3054even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3055and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3056terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3057
3058The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3059enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3060also works.
3061
3062DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3063GDB.
3064
3065It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3066directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3067times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3068breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3069
ed9a39eb
JM
3070* New native configurations
3071
3072ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3073PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3074
7a292a7a
SS
3075* New targets
3076
96baa820 3077Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3078x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3079PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3080TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3081
085dd6e6
JM
3082* OBSOLETE configurations
3083
3084Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3085Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3086Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3087ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3088Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3089
9debab2f
AC
3090Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3091but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3092these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3093be permanently REMOVED.
3094
5330533d
SS
3095* Gould support removed
3096
3097Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3098
bc9e5bbf
AC
3099* New features for SVR4
3100
3101On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3102without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3103load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3104
3105* Many C++ enhancements
3106
3107C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3108in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3109
adf40b2e
JM
3110* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3111
3112A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3113sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3114with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3115``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3116
3117 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3118 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3119
43e526b9
JM
3120* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3121
3122A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3123expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3124instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3125
3126The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3127added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3128
96baa820
JM
3129* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3130
3131The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3132``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3133include ``set remote P-packet''.
3134
11cf8741
JM
3135* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3136
3137The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3138accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3139``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3140
7876dd43
DB
3141* ``apropos'' command added.
3142
3143The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3144documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3145try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3146
bc9e5bbf
AC
3147* New MI interface
3148
3149A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3150interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3151process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3152"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3153enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3154
3155 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3156
c906108c
SS
3157*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3158
3159* New native configurations
3160
3161HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3162HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3163M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3164
3165* New targets
3166
3167Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3168Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3169Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3170
3171* OBSOLETE configurations
3172
3173Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3174
3175Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3176but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3177these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3178be permanently REMOVED.
3179
3180* ANSI/ISO C
3181
3182As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3183buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3184containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3185use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3186available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3187configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3188information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3189already.
3190
3191* Readline 2.2
3192
3193GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3194
3195* set extension-language
3196
3197You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3198languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3199you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3200 set extension-language .c c++
3201The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3202and their associated languages.
3203
3204* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3205
3206When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3207you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3208PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3209
3210 set processor NAME
3211
3212sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3213following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3214
3215 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3216 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3217 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3218 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3219 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3220 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3221 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3222 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3223 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3224 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3225 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3226
3227At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3228special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3229registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3230only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3231
3232* HP-UX support
3233
3234Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3235more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3236library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3237support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3238for xdb and dbx commands.
3239
3240* Catchpoints
3241
3242HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3243generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3244to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3245
3246This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3247argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3248output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3249
3250* Debugging across forks
3251
3252On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3253in the inferior.
3254
3255* TUI
3256
3257HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3258it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3259configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3260
3261* GDB remote protocol additions
3262
3263A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3264Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3265fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3266allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3267
3268For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3269full 64-bit address. The command
3270
3271 set remoteaddresssize 32
3272
3273can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3274the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3275will be discarded.
3276
3277In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3278command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3279
3280 maint packet heythere
3281
3282sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3283disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3284time.
3285
3286The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3287target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3288downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3289
3290* Tracing can collect general expressions
3291
3292You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3293further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3294doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3295
3296* mask-address variable for Mips
3297
3298For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3299a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3300of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3301
3302* Higher serial baud rates
3303
3304GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3305230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3306to achieve all of these rates.)
3307
3308* i960 simulator
3309
3310The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3311builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3312
3313
3314*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3315
3316* New native configurations
3317
3318Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3319Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3320Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3321PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3322PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3323Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3324Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3325
3326* New targets
3327
3328Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3329Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3330Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3331Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3332MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3333MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3334MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3335Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3336Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3337Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3338NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3339
3340* New debugging protocols
3341
3342ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3343M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3344DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3345PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3346PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3347Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3348
3349* DWARF 2
3350
3351All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3352format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3353information.
3354
3355* Java frontend
3356
3357GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3358only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3359
3360* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3361
3362For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3363loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3364locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3365
3366* Live range splitting
3367
3368GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3369range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3370more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3371
3372* Hurd support
3373
3374GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3375updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3376
3377* ARM Thumb support
3378
3379GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3380instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3381instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3382accordingly.
3383
3384* MIPS16 support
3385
3386GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3387instruction set.
3388
3389* Overlay support
3390
3391GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3392linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3393will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3394control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3395additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3396in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3397
3398* info symbol
3399
3400The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3401the symbol at the specified address.
3402
3403* Trace support
3404
3405The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3406asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3407extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3408includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3409file tracepoint.c for more details.
3410
3411* MIPS simulator
3412
3413Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3414by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3415of most MIPS variants.
3416
3417* Sparc simulator
3418
3419Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3420by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3421Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3422
3423* set architecture
3424
3425For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3426basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3427architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3428the possible architectures.
3429
3430*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3431
3432* New native configurations
3433
3434Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3435M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3436PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3437PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3438PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3439RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3440
3441* New targets
3442
3443ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3444I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3445MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3446MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3447PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3448Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3449Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3450
3451* PowerPC simulator
3452
3453The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3454contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3455PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3456basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3457performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3458
3459* Solaris 2.5
3460
3461GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3462
3463* Windows 95/NT native
3464
3465GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3466To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3467which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3468Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3469ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3470
3471* dont-repeat command
3472
3473If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3474command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3475useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3476extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3477
3478* Send break instead of ^C
3479
3480The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3481rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3482GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3483
3484* Remote protocol timeout
3485
3486The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3487that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3488to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3489
3490* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3491
3492By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3493loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3494stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3495when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3496in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3497
3498Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3499/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3500automatically on hpux10.
3501
3502* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3503
3504Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3505
3506* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3507
3508When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3509may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3510the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3511every character. The default value is 1050.
3512
3513* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3514
3515If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3516a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3517replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3518details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3519remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3520to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3521
3522* Speedups for remote debugging
3523
3524GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3525the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3526and more efficient S-record downloading.
3527
3528* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3529
3530GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3531Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3532
3533*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3534
3535* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3536
3537The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3538can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3539
3540* Remote targets use caching
3541
3542Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3543remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3544it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3545debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3546off' turns the the data cache off.
3547
3548* Remote targets may have threads
3549
3550The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3551in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3552gdb/remote.c for details.
3553
3554* NetROM support
3555
3556If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3557support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3558acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3559write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3560support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3561another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3562sequence is something like
3563
3564 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3565 load <prog>
3566 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3567
3568* Macintosh host
3569
3570GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3571may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3572it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3573available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3574device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3575directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3576scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3577mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3578
3579* Autoconf
3580
3581GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3582but does simplify configuration and building.
3583
3584* hpux10
3585
3586GDB now supports hpux10.
3587
3588*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3589
3590* New native configurations
3591
3592x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3593x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3594NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3595Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3596
3597* New targets
3598
3599A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3600HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3601CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3602PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3603WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3604
3605* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3606
3607GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3608possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3609filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3610the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3611if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3612
3613* Arguments to user-defined commands
3614
3615User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3616Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3617trivial example:
3618define adder
3619 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3620
3621To execute the command use:
3622adder 1 2 3
3623
3624Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3625Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3626use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3627
3628* New `if' and `while' commands
3629
3630This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3631commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3632expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3633execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3634terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3635`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3636if the expression is zero.
3637
3638* Fortran source language mode
3639
3640GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3641Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3642variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3643with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3644Fortran compilers.
3645
3646* Better HPUX support
3647
3648Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3649running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3650processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3651for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3652that behavior do the following before running the program:
3653
3654 adb -w a.out
3655 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3656 control-d
3657
3658This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3659To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3660
3661 adb -w a.out
3662 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3663 control-d
3664
3665You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3666the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3667external linkage.
3668
3669GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3670HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3671
3672* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3673
3674You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3675commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3676current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3677"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3678associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3679configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3680
3681* New DOS host serial code
3682
3683This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3684no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3685a PC's serial port.
3686
3687*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3688
3689* New "complete" command
3690
3691This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3692were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3693
3694* Trailing space optional in prompt
3695
3696"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3697allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3698
3699* Breakpoint hit counts
3700
3701"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3702has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3703can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3704to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3705less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3706that breakpoint.
3707
3708* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3709
3710"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3711an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3712arrays actually contain only short strings.
3713
3714* Shared library breakpoints
3715
3716In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3717breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3718
3719* Hardware watchpoints
3720
3721There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3722targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3723
55241689 3724Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3725
3726* Annotations
3727
3728Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3729and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3730
3731* Improved Irix 5 support
3732
3733GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3734
3735* Improved HPPA support
3736
3737GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3738
3739* New native configurations
3740
3741Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3742HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3743Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3744RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3745
3746* New targets
3747
3748OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3749MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3750Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3751
3752* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3753
3754There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3755This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3756
3757* Fixes
3758
3759As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3760and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3761
3762*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3763
3764* Irix 5 is now supported
3765
3766* HPPA support
3767
3768GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3769to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3770GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3771of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3772can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3773
3774
3775*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3776
3777* User visible changes:
3778
3779* Remote Debugging
3780
3781The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3782target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3783debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3784integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3785debugging info for the mips target).
3786
3787* DEC Alpha native support
3788
3789GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3790debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3791work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3792Alpha-specific notes.
3793
3794* Preliminary thread implementation
3795
3796GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3797
3798* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3799
3800This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3801to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3802for details).
3803
3804* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3805
3806This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3807mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3808call methods, ...etc.
3809
3810*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3811
3812 * User visible changes:
3813
3814Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3815supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3816other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3817somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3818
3819Filename completion now works.
3820
3821When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3822arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3823addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3824
3825All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3826vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3827should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3828your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3829to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3830
3831 * DEC alpha support
3832
3833This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3834cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3835
3836
3837*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3838
3839 * Testsuite
3840
3841This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3842The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3843via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3844
3845 * C++ demangling
3846
3847'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3848emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3849Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3850disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3851use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3852
3853 * Simulators
3854
3855GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3856So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3857Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3858
3859 * New targets supported
3860
3861H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3862H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3863SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3864Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3865IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3866
3867Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3868version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3869GO32 memory extender.
3870
3871 * New remote protocols
3872
3873MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3874
3875 * New source languages supported
3876
3877This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3878used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3879into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3880
3881
3882*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3883
3884 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3885
3886GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3887version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3888University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3889compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3890format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3891(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3892
3893Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3894
3895 * Faster and better demangling
3896
3897We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3898demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3899character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3900only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3901This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3902increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3903symbol lookups.
3904
3905`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3906from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3907compiler does not actually implement.
3908
3909 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3910
3911In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3912inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3913recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3914very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3915The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3916circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3917fix.
3918
3919The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3920release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3921
3922 * Improved configure script
3923
3924The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3925you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3926host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3927done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3928
3929We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3930version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3931`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3932The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3933only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3934We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3935
3936 * Documentation improvements
3937
3938There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3939produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3940before submitting changes.
3941
3942The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3943M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3944`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3945you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3946a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3947
3948*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3949We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3950been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3951or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3952`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3953around this problem.
3954
3955 * New features
3956
3957GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3958the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3959`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3960the target program.
3961
3962The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3963how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3964
3965 * New native hosts supported
3966
3967HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3968386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3969
3970 * New targets supported
3971
3972AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3973
3974 * New file formats supported
3975
3976BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3977HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3978
3979 * Major bug fixes
3980
3981Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3982
3983We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3984printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3985
3986We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3987for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3988release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3989
3990You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3991will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3992
3993We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3994for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3995especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3996libraries.
3997
3998The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3999information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4000command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4001any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4002when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4003
4004 * Internal improvements
4005
4006GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4007debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4008
4009GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4010Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4011symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4012contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4013shared code that handles any of them.
4014
4015 * New command line options
4016
4017We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4018
4019 * Mmalloc licensing
4020
4021The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4022General Public License.
4023
4024*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4025
4026 * Host/native/target split
4027
4028GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4029hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4030target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4031local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4032ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4033
4034The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4035GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4036is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4037code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4038any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4039built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4040handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4041
4042GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4043It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4044plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4045
4046 * New hosts supported
4047
4048HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4049386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4050386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4051
4052 * New targets supported
4053
4054Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
405568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4056
4057 * New native hosts supported
4058
4059386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4060 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4061386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4062
4063 * New file formats supported
4064
4065BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4066supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4067format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4068
4069 * New commands
4070
4071`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4072`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4073These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4074
4075`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4076
4077You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4078scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4079prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4080executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4081
4082 * C++ improvements
4083
4084We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4085info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4086symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4087
4088Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4089
4090 * Major bug fixes
4091
4092The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4093fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4094by the compiler.
4095
4096We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4097support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4098
4099John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4100slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4101that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4102purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4103the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4104mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4105
4106Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4107about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4108completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4109we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4110
4111 * AMD 29k support
4112
4113A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4114specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4115calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4116usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4117in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4118
4119We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4120Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4121of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4122resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4123
4124 * Remote interfaces
4125
4126We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4127with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4128message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4129This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4130needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4131breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4132each instruction being stepped through.
4133
4134The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4135registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4136
4137There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4138find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4139Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4140processor with a serial port.
4141
4142 * Configuration
4143
4144Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4145`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4146supported, and what files each one uses.
4147
4148 * Library changes
4149
4150There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4151disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4152Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4153disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4154
4155The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4156Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4157can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4158grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4159
4160 * Documentation
4161
4162The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4163reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4164as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4165encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4166system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4167bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4168
4169And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4170
4171
4172*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4173
4174 * Better support for C++ function names
4175
4176GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4177names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4178(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4179single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4180Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4181
4182GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4183the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4184You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4185lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4186for the list of formats.
4187
4188 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4189
4190Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4191C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4192directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4193can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4194usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4195about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4196this problem.)
4197
4198 * New 'maintenance' command
4199
4200All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4201the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4202can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4203
4204 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4205 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4206 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4207 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4208 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4209 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4210
4211The following commands are new:
4212
4213 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4214 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4215 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4216
4217 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4218
4219We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4220(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4221be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4222read after argv processing.
4223
4224 * New hosts supported
4225
4226Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4227
55241689 4228GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4229
4230We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4231is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4232for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4233masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4234fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4235It costs extra.
4236
4237 * New targets supported
4238
4239Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4240
4241 * More smarts about finding #include files
4242
4243GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4244all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4245greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4246especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4247the one that contains your sources.
4248
4249We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4250breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4251try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4252
4253 * Interesting infernals change
4254
4255GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4256section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4257target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4258stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4259
4260 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4261
4262There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4263 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4264 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4265
4266See the ChangeLog for details.
4267
4268*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4269
4270 * New machines supported (host and target)
4271
4272IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4273
4274SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4275
4276 * New malloc package
4277
4278GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4279Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4280capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4281This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4282pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4283more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4284
4285 * info proc
4286
4287The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4288'help info proc' for details.
4289
4290 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4291
4292The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4293Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4294possible.
4295
4296 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4297
4298Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4299support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4300conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4301environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4302that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4303in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4304
4305 * Cross byte order fixes
4306
4307Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4308targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4309
4310 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4311
4312If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4313system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4314`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4315program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4316called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4317Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4318and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4319the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4320option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4321starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4322
4323You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4324the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4325information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4326slower, but makes future operations faster.
4327
4328The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4329build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4330A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4331use is:
4332
4333 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4334
4335The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4336It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4337shared across multiple host platforms.
4338
4339 * longjmp() handling
4340
4341GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4342siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4343all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4344platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4345
4346 * Solaris 2.0
4347
4348Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4349this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4350reading symbols.
4351
4352 * Bug fixes
4353
4354As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4355People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4356crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4357
4358*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4359
4360 * New machines supported (host and target)
4361
4362SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4363 (except core files)
4364BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4365Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4366
4367 * New machines supported (target)
4368
4369AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4370
4371 * C++ support
4372
4373GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4374The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4375per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4376
4377GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4378`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4379extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4380good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4381will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4382released.
4383
4384 * New features for SVR4
4385
4386GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4387shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4388only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4389
4390The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4391on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4392it prints the address mappings of the process.
4393
4394If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4395bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4396
4397 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4398
4399Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4400now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4401skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4402make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4403same code linked statically.
4404
4405 * New Getopt
4406
4407GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4408version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4409continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4410Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4411added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4412future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4413
4414 * Bugs fixed
4415
4416The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4417Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4418See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4419
4420
4421*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4422
4423 * New machines supported (host and target)
4424
4425Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4426NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4427Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4428
4429 * Almost SCO Unix support
4430
4431We had hoped to support:
4432SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4433(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4434that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4435about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4436
4437 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4438
4439GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4440debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4441is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4442send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4443reqired (if any).
4444
4445 * New Readline
4446
4447GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4448is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4449required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4450
4451 * Bugs fixed
4452
4453The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4454Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4455See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4456
4457 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4458
4459GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4460supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4461symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4462
4463Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4464mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4465debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4466mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4467version 2.
4468
4469Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4470really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4471line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4472variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4473situation somewhat.
4474
4475When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4476However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4477methods.
4478
4479We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4480DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4481encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4482
4483
4484*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4485
4486 * Improved configuration
4487
4488Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4489Porting BFD is simpler.
4490
4491 * Stepping improved
4492
4493The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4494of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4495in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4496function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4497
4498 * Bug fixing
4499
4500Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4501
4502 * New host supported (not target)
4503
4504Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4505
4506
4507*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4508
4509 * Multiple source language support
4510
4511GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4512It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4513and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4514language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4515You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4516`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4517
4518 * GDB and Modula-2
4519
4520GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4521currently under development at the State University of New York at
4522Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4523continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4524
4525Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4526debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4527symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4528
4529There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4530in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4531
4532 * set write on/off
4533
4534GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4535a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4536the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4537by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4538effect immediately.
4539
4540 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4541
4542When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4543shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4544The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4545examining core files.
4546
4547 * set listsize
4548
4549You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4550The default is 10.
4551
4552 * New machines supported (host and target)
4553
4554SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4555Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4556Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4557
4558 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4559
4560IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4561
4562 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4563
4564AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4565AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4566Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4567
4568 * New remote interfaces
4569
4570AMD 29000 Adapt
4571AMD 29000 Minimon
4572
4573
4574*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4575
4576 * New Facilities
4577
4578Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4579
4580Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4581target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4582is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4583remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4584remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4585also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4586using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4587stub on the target system.
4588
4589New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4590
4591GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4592library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4593object file types such as a.out and coff.
4594
4595There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4596refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4597
4598
4599 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4600
4601All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4602by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4603
4604For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4605``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4606Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4607
4608What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4609print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4610will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4611all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4612
4613confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4614 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4615 it is already running. Default is ON.
4616
4617editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4618 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4619 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4620 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4621 Default is ON.
4622
4623history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4624 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4625 or the value of the environment variable
4626 GDBHISTFILE.
4627
4628history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4629 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4630 HISTSIZE.
4631
4632history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4633 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4634 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4635
4636history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4637 history expansion will be performed on
4638 command line input. The default is OFF.
4639
4640radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4641 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4642 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4643
4644height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4645 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4646 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4647 variable TERM.
4648
4649width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4650 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4651 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4652 variable TERM.
4653
4654Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4655``set width'' instead.
4656
4657print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4658 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4659 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4660 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4661
4662print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4663 is OFF.
4664
4665print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4666 "raw" form if off.
4667
4668print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4669 like instructions.
4670
4671print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4672
4673
4674 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4675
4676The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4677new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4678are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4679window.
4680
4681
4682 * Support for Shared Libraries
4683
4684GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4685Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4686before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4687happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4688At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4689from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4690shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4691It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4692
4693sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4694 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4695 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4696
4697info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4698
4699
4700 * Watchpoints
4701
4702A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4703expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4704tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4705quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4706problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4707more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4708
4709watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4710
4711info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4712
4713delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4714disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4715enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4716
4717
4718 * C++ multiple inheritance
4719
4720When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4721for C++ programs.
4722
4723 * C++ exception handling
4724
4725Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4726ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4727the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4728handler's context).
4729
4730catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4731 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4732 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4733
4734info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4735 current stack frame.
4736
4737
4738 * Minor command changes
4739
4740The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4741command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4742is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4743
4744The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4745at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4746frames without printing.
4747
4748 * New directory command
4749
4750'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4751The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4752about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4753with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4754find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4755
4756 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4757
4758For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4759for more details.
4760
4761GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4762two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4763Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4764where the program that you are debugging will run.