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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.0:
5
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6* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7
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8* New native configurations
9
10Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
12
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13* New targets
14
17e78a56 15* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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16
17x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 18Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bf64bfd6 19
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20stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
21kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
22
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23Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
24been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
25configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
26permanently REMOVED.
27
28* REMOVED configurations
29
30Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
31Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
32Pyramid pyramid-*-*
33ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
34Tahoe tahoe-*-*
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35
36* Other news:
37
38* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
39
40Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
41
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42* gdba.el deleted
43
44GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 45
9debab2f 46*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
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48* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
49
50Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
51programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
52displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
53greater level of detail.
54
55* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
56
57It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
58bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
59on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
60written.
61
62* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
63
64The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
65necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
66machines ``out of the box''.
67
68The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
69possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
70signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
71would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
72interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
73
74It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
75standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
76even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
77and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
78terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
79
80The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
81enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
82also works.
83
84DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
85GDB.
86
87It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
88directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
89times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
90breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
91
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92* New native configurations
93
94ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 95PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 96
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97* New targets
98
96baa820 99Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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100x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
101PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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102TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
103
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104* OBSOLETE configurations
105
106Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
107Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 108Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 109ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 110Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 111
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112Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
113but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
114these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
115be permanently REMOVED.
116
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117* Gould support removed
118
119Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
120
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121* New features for SVR4
122
123On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
124without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
125load symbols from the running process's executable file.
126
127* Many C++ enhancements
128
129C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
130in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
131
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132* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
133
134A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
135sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
136with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
137``|<program> <args>'' vis:
138
139 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
140 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
141
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142* MIPS 64 remote protocol
143
144A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
145expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
146instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
147
148The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
149added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
150
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151* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
152
153The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
154``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
155include ``set remote P-packet''.
156
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157* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
158
159The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
160accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
161``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
162
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163* ``apropos'' command added.
164
165The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
166documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
167try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
168
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169* New MI interface
170
171A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
172interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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173process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
174"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
175enabled by configuring with:
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176
177 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
178
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179*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
180
181* New native configurations
182
183HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
184HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
185M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
186
187* New targets
188
189Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
190Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
191Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
192
193* OBSOLETE configurations
194
195Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
196
197Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
198but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
199these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
200be permanently REMOVED.
201
202* ANSI/ISO C
203
204As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
205buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
206containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
207use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
208available. If this is not true, please report the affected
209configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
210information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
211already.
212
213* Readline 2.2
214
215GDB now uses readline 2.2.
216
217* set extension-language
218
219You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
220languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
221you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
222 set extension-language .c c++
223The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
224and their associated languages.
225
226* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
227
228When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
229you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
230PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
231
232 set processor NAME
233
234sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
235following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
236
237 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
238 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
239 403 IBM PowerPC 403
240 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
241 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
242 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
243 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
244 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
245 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
246 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
247 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
248
249At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
250special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
251registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
252only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
253
254* HP-UX support
255
256Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
257more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
258library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
259support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
260for xdb and dbx commands.
261
262* Catchpoints
263
264HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
265generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
266to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
267
268This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
269argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
270output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
271
272* Debugging across forks
273
274On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
275in the inferior.
276
277* TUI
278
279HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
280it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
281configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
282
283* GDB remote protocol additions
284
285A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
286Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
287fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
288allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
289
290For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
291full 64-bit address. The command
292
293 set remoteaddresssize 32
294
295can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
296the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
297will be discarded.
298
299In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
300command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
301
302 maint packet heythere
303
304sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
305disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
306time.
307
308The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
309target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
310downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
311
312* Tracing can collect general expressions
313
314You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
315further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
316doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
317
318* mask-address variable for Mips
319
320For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
321a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
322of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
323
324* Higher serial baud rates
325
326GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
327230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
328to achieve all of these rates.)
329
330* i960 simulator
331
332The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
333builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
334
335
336*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
337
338* New native configurations
339
340Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
341Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
342Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
343PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
344PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
345Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
346Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
347
348* New targets
349
350Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
351Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
352Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
353Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
354MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
355MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
356MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
357Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
358Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
359Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
360NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
361
362* New debugging protocols
363
364ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
365M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
366DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
367PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
368PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
369Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
370
371* DWARF 2
372
373All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
374format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
375information.
376
377* Java frontend
378
379GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
380only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
381
382* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
383
384For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
385loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
386locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
387
388* Live range splitting
389
390GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
391range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
392more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
393
394* Hurd support
395
396GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
397updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
398
399* ARM Thumb support
400
401GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
402instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
403instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
404accordingly.
405
406* MIPS16 support
407
408GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
409instruction set.
410
411* Overlay support
412
413GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
414linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
415will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
416control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
417additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
418in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
419
420* info symbol
421
422The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
423the symbol at the specified address.
424
425* Trace support
426
427The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
428asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
429extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
430includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
431file tracepoint.c for more details.
432
433* MIPS simulator
434
435Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
436by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
437of most MIPS variants.
438
439* Sparc simulator
440
441Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
442by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
443Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
444
445* set architecture
446
447For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
448basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
449architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
450the possible architectures.
451
452*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
453
454* New native configurations
455
456Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
457M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
458PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
459PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
460PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
461RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
462
463* New targets
464
465ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
466I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
467MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
468MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
469PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
470Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
471Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
472
473* PowerPC simulator
474
475The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
476contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
477PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
478basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
479performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
480
481* Solaris 2.5
482
483GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
484
485* Windows 95/NT native
486
487GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
488To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
489which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
490Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
491ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
492
493* dont-repeat command
494
495If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
496command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
497useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
498extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
499
500* Send break instead of ^C
501
502The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
503rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
504GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
505
506* Remote protocol timeout
507
508The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
509that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
510to read from the target. The default value is 2.
511
512* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
513
514By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
515loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
516stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
517when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
518in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
519
520Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
521/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
522automatically on hpux10.
523
524* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
525
526Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
527
528* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
529
530When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
531may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
532the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
533every character. The default value is 1050.
534
535* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
536
537If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
538a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
539replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
540details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
541remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
542to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
543
544* Speedups for remote debugging
545
546GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
547the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
548and more efficient S-record downloading.
549
550* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
551
552GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
553Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
554
555*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
556
557* Psymtabs for XCOFF
558
559The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
560can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
561
562* Remote targets use caching
563
564Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
565remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
566it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
567debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
568off' turns the the data cache off.
569
570* Remote targets may have threads
571
572The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
573in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
574gdb/remote.c for details.
575
576* NetROM support
577
578If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
579support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
580acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
581write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
582support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
583another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
584sequence is something like
585
586 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
587 load <prog>
588 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
589
590* Macintosh host
591
592GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
593may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
594it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
595available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
596device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
597directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
598scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
599mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
600
601* Autoconf
602
603GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
604but does simplify configuration and building.
605
606* hpux10
607
608GDB now supports hpux10.
609
610*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
611
612* New native configurations
613
614x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
615x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
616NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
617Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
618
619* New targets
620
621A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
622HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
623CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
624PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
625WDC 65816 w65-*-*
626
627* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
628
629GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
630possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
631filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
632the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
633if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
634
635* Arguments to user-defined commands
636
637User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
638Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
639trivial example:
640define adder
641 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
642
643To execute the command use:
644adder 1 2 3
645
646Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
647Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
648use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
649
650* New `if' and `while' commands
651
652This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
653commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
654expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
655execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
656terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
657`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
658if the expression is zero.
659
660* Fortran source language mode
661
662GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
663Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
664variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
665with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
666Fortran compilers.
667
668* Better HPUX support
669
670Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
671running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
672processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
673for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
674that behavior do the following before running the program:
675
676 adb -w a.out
677 __dld_flags?W 0x5
678 control-d
679
680This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
681To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
682
683 adb -w a.out
684 __dld_flags?W 0x4
685 control-d
686
687You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
688the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
689external linkage.
690
691GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
692HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
693
694* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
695
696You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
697commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
698current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
699"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
700associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
701configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
702
703* New DOS host serial code
704
705This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
706no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
707a PC's serial port.
708
709*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
710
711* New "complete" command
712
713This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
714were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
715
716* Trailing space optional in prompt
717
718"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
719allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
720
721* Breakpoint hit counts
722
723"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
724has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
725can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
726to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
727less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
728that breakpoint.
729
730* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
731
732"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
733an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
734arrays actually contain only short strings.
735
736* Shared library breakpoints
737
738In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
739breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
740
741* Hardware watchpoints
742
743There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
744targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
745
746Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
747
748* Annotations
749
750Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
751and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
752
753* Improved Irix 5 support
754
755GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
756
757* Improved HPPA support
758
759GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
760
761* New native configurations
762
763Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
764HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
765Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
766RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
767
768* New targets
769
770OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
771MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
772Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
773
774* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
775
776There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
777This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
778
779* Fixes
780
781As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
782and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
783
784*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
785
786* Irix 5 is now supported
787
788* HPPA support
789
790GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
791to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
792GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
793of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
794can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
795
796
797*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
798
799* User visible changes:
800
801* Remote Debugging
802
803The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
804target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
805debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
806integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
807debugging info for the mips target).
808
809* DEC Alpha native support
810
811GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
812debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
813work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
814Alpha-specific notes.
815
816* Preliminary thread implementation
817
818GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
819
820* LynxOS native and target support for 386
821
822This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
823to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
824for details).
825
826* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
827
828This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
829mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
830call methods, ...etc.
831
832*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
833
834 * User visible changes:
835
836Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
837supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
838other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
839somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
840
841Filename completion now works.
842
843When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
844arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
845addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
846
847All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
848vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
849should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
850your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
851to be on the far side of a thin network line.
852
853 * DEC alpha support
854
855This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
856cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
857
858
859*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
860
861 * Testsuite
862
863This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
864The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
865via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
866
867 * C++ demangling
868
869'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
870emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
871Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
872disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
873use gdb with AT&T cfront.
874
875 * Simulators
876
877GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
878So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
879Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
880
881 * New targets supported
882
883H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
884H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
885SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
886Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
887IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
888
889Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
890version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
891GO32 memory extender.
892
893 * New remote protocols
894
895MIPS remote debugging protocol.
896
897 * New source languages supported
898
899This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
900used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
901into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
902
903
904*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
905
906 * HP Precision Architecture supported
907
908GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
909version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
910University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
911compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
912format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
913(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
914
915Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
916
917 * Faster and better demangling
918
919We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
920demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
921character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
922only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
923This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
924increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
925symbol lookups.
926
927`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
928from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
929compiler does not actually implement.
930
931 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
932
933In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
934inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
935recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
936very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
937The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
938circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
939fix.
940
941The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
942release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
943
944 * Improved configure script
945
946The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
947you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
948host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
949done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
950
951We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
952version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
953`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
954The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
955only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
956We hope to make this the default in a future release.
957
958 * Documentation improvements
959
960There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
961produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
962before submitting changes.
963
964The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
965M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
966`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
967you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
968a future texinfo-X.Y release.
969
970*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
971We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
972been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
973or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
974`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
975around this problem.
976
977 * New features
978
979GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
980the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
981`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
982the target program.
983
984The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
985how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
986
987 * New native hosts supported
988
989HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
990386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
991
992 * New targets supported
993
994AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
995
996 * New file formats supported
997
998BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
999HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1000
1001 * Major bug fixes
1002
1003Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1004
1005We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1006printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1007
1008We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1009for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1010release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1011
1012You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1013will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1014
1015We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1016for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1017especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1018libraries.
1019
1020The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1021information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1022command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1023any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1024when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1025
1026 * Internal improvements
1027
1028GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1029debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1030
1031GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1032Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1033symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1034contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1035shared code that handles any of them.
1036
1037 * New command line options
1038
1039We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1040
1041 * Mmalloc licensing
1042
1043The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1044General Public License.
1045
1046*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1047
1048 * Host/native/target split
1049
1050GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1051hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1052target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1053local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1054ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1055
1056The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1057GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1058is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1059code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1060any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1061built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1062handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1063
1064GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1065It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1066plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1067
1068 * New hosts supported
1069
1070HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1071386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1072386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1073
1074 * New targets supported
1075
1076Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
107768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1078
1079 * New native hosts supported
1080
1081386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1082 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1083386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1084
1085 * New file formats supported
1086
1087BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1088supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1089format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1090
1091 * New commands
1092
1093`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1094`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1095These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1096
1097`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1098
1099You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1100scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1101prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1102executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1103
1104 * C++ improvements
1105
1106We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1107info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1108symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1109
1110Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1111
1112 * Major bug fixes
1113
1114The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1115fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1116by the compiler.
1117
1118We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1119support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1120
1121John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1122slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1123that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1124purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1125the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1126mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1127
1128Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1129about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1130completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1131we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1132
1133 * AMD 29k support
1134
1135A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1136specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1137calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1138usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1139in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1140
1141We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1142Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1143of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1144resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1145
1146 * Remote interfaces
1147
1148We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1149with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1150message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1151This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1152needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1153breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1154each instruction being stepped through.
1155
1156The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1157registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1158
1159There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1160find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1161Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1162processor with a serial port.
1163
1164 * Configuration
1165
1166Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1167`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1168supported, and what files each one uses.
1169
1170 * Library changes
1171
1172There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1173disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1174Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1175disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1176
1177The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1178Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1179can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1180grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1181
1182 * Documentation
1183
1184The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1185reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1186as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1187encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1188system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1189bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1190
1191And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1192
1193
1194*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1195
1196 * Better support for C++ function names
1197
1198GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1199names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1200(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1201single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1202Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1203
1204GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1205the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1206You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1207lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1208for the list of formats.
1209
1210 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1211
1212Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1213C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1214directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1215can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1216usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1217about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1218this problem.)
1219
1220 * New 'maintenance' command
1221
1222All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1223the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1224can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1225
1226 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1227 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1228 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1229 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1230 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1231 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1232
1233The following commands are new:
1234
1235 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1236 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1237 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1238
1239 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1240
1241We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1242(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1243be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1244read after argv processing.
1245
1246 * New hosts supported
1247
1248Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1249
1250Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1251
1252We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1253is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1254for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1255masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1256fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1257It costs extra.
1258
1259 * New targets supported
1260
1261Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1262
1263 * More smarts about finding #include files
1264
1265GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1266all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1267greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1268especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1269the one that contains your sources.
1270
1271We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1272breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1273try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1274
1275 * Interesting infernals change
1276
1277GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1278section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1279target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1280stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1281
1282 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1283
1284There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1285 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1286 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1287
1288See the ChangeLog for details.
1289
1290*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1291
1292 * New machines supported (host and target)
1293
1294IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1295
1296SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1297
1298 * New malloc package
1299
1300GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1301Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1302capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1303This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1304pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1305more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1306
1307 * info proc
1308
1309The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1310'help info proc' for details.
1311
1312 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1313
1314The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1315Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1316possible.
1317
1318 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1319
1320Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1321support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1322conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1323environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1324that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1325in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1326
1327 * Cross byte order fixes
1328
1329Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1330targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1331
1332 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1333
1334If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1335system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1336`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1337program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1338called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1339Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1340and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1341the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1342option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1343starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1344
1345You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1346the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1347information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1348slower, but makes future operations faster.
1349
1350The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1351build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1352A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1353use is:
1354
1355 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1356
1357The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1358It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1359shared across multiple host platforms.
1360
1361 * longjmp() handling
1362
1363GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1364siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1365all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1366platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1367
1368 * Solaris 2.0
1369
1370Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1371this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1372reading symbols.
1373
1374 * Bug fixes
1375
1376As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1377People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1378crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1379
1380*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1381
1382 * New machines supported (host and target)
1383
1384SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1385 (except core files)
1386BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1387Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1388
1389 * New machines supported (target)
1390
1391AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1392
1393 * C++ support
1394
1395GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1396The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1397per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1398
1399GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1400`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1401extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1402good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1403will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1404released.
1405
1406 * New features for SVR4
1407
1408GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1409shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1410only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1411
1412The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1413on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1414it prints the address mappings of the process.
1415
1416If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1417bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1418
1419 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1420
1421Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1422now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1423skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1424make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1425same code linked statically.
1426
1427 * New Getopt
1428
1429GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1430version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1431continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1432Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1433added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1434future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1435
1436 * Bugs fixed
1437
1438The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1439Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1440See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1441
1442
1443*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1444
1445 * New machines supported (host and target)
1446
1447Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1448NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1449Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1450
1451 * Almost SCO Unix support
1452
1453We had hoped to support:
1454SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1455(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1456that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1457about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1458
1459 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1460
1461GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1462debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1463is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1464send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1465reqired (if any).
1466
1467 * New Readline
1468
1469GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1470is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1471required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1472
1473 * Bugs fixed
1474
1475The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1476Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1477See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1478
1479 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1480
1481GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1482supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1483symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1484
1485Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1486mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1487debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1488mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1489version 2.
1490
1491Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1492really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1493line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1494variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1495situation somewhat.
1496
1497When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1498However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1499methods.
1500
1501We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1502DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1503encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1504
1505
1506*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1507
1508 * Improved configuration
1509
1510Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1511Porting BFD is simpler.
1512
1513 * Stepping improved
1514
1515The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1516of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1517in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1518function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1519
1520 * Bug fixing
1521
1522Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1523
1524 * New host supported (not target)
1525
1526Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1527
1528
1529*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1530
1531 * Multiple source language support
1532
1533GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1534It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1535and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1536language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1537You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1538`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1539
1540 * GDB and Modula-2
1541
1542GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1543currently under development at the State University of New York at
1544Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1545continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1546
1547Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1548debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1549symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1550
1551There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1552in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1553
1554 * set write on/off
1555
1556GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1557a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1558the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1559by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1560effect immediately.
1561
1562 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1563
1564When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1565shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1566The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1567examining core files.
1568
1569 * set listsize
1570
1571You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1572The default is 10.
1573
1574 * New machines supported (host and target)
1575
1576SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1577Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1578Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1579
1580 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1581
1582IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1583
1584 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1585
1586AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1587AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1588Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1589
1590 * New remote interfaces
1591
1592AMD 29000 Adapt
1593AMD 29000 Minimon
1594
1595
1596*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1597
1598 * New Facilities
1599
1600Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1601
1602Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1603target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1604is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1605remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1606remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1607also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1608using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1609stub on the target system.
1610
1611New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1612
1613GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1614library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1615object file types such as a.out and coff.
1616
1617There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1618refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1619
1620
1621 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1622
1623All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1624by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1625
1626For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1627``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1628Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1629
1630What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1631print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1632will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1633all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1634
1635confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1636 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1637 it is already running. Default is ON.
1638
1639editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1640 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1641 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1642 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1643 Default is ON.
1644
1645history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1646 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1647 or the value of the environment variable
1648 GDBHISTFILE.
1649
1650history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1651 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1652 HISTSIZE.
1653
1654history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1655 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1656 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1657
1658history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1659 history expansion will be performed on
1660 command line input. The default is OFF.
1661
1662radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1663 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1664 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1665
1666height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1667 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1668 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1669 variable TERM.
1670
1671width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1672 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1673 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1674 variable TERM.
1675
1676Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1677``set width'' instead.
1678
1679print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1680 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1681 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1682 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1683
1684print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1685 is OFF.
1686
1687print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1688 "raw" form if off.
1689
1690print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1691 like instructions.
1692
1693print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1694
1695
1696 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1697
1698The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1699new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1700are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1701window.
1702
1703
1704 * Support for Shared Libraries
1705
1706GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1707Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1708before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1709happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1710At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1711from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1712shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1713It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1714
1715sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1716 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1717 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1718
1719info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1720
1721
1722 * Watchpoints
1723
1724A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1725expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1726tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1727quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1728problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1729more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1730
1731watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1732
1733info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1734
1735delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1736disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1737enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1738
1739
1740 * C++ multiple inheritance
1741
1742When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1743for C++ programs.
1744
1745 * C++ exception handling
1746
1747Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1748ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1749the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1750handler's context).
1751
1752catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1753 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1754 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1755
1756info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1757 current stack frame.
1758
1759
1760 * Minor command changes
1761
1762The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1763command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1764is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1765
1766The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1767at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1768frames without printing.
1769
1770 * New directory command
1771
1772'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1773The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1774about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1775with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1776find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1777
1778 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1779
1780For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1781for more details.
1782
1783GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1784two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1785Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1786where the program that you are debugging will run.