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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.2
5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
9 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
10 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
11 that function like so:
12
13 result = some_value (10,20)
14
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15* C++ Improvements:
16
17 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
18 instantiation. For example, if you have:
19
20 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
21
22 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
23 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
24 was added to GCC 4.5.
25
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26* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
27 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
28 execution to a label.
29
30* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
31 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
32 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
33 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
34
b56df873 35* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 36 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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37 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
38 of scope.
39
76b8507d 40*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 41
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42* Shared library support for remote targets by default
43
44 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
45 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
46 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
47 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
48 was always disabled for such configurations.
49
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50* C++ Improvements:
51
52 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
53
54 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
55 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
56 For example:
57 namespace A
58 {
59 class B { };
60 void foo (B) { }
61 }
62 ...
63 A::B b
64 foo(b)
65 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
66 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
67 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
68
69 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
70
71 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
72 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
73 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
74 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
75 entry.
76 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
77 mentioned flavors of operators.
78
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79 ** static const class members
80
81 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
82 class definition has been fixed.
83
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84* Windows Thread Information Block access.
85
86 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
87 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
88 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
89 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
90 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
91 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
92
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93* Static tracepoints
94
95 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
96 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
97 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
98 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
99 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
100 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
101 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
102 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
103 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
104 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
105 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
106 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
107 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
108 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
109 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
110 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
111 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
112 the "New remote packets" section below.
113
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114* New remote packets
115
116qGetTIBAddr
117
118 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
119
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120qRelocInsn
121
122 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
123 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
124 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
125 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
126 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
127 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
128
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129qTfSTM, qTsSTM
130
131 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
132
133qTSTMat
134
135 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
136 program.
137
138qXfer:statictrace:read
139
140 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
141 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
142 to gdb's qSupported query.
143
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144* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
145 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
146 a directory.
147
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148* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
149
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150 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
151 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
152 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
153 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
154
155 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
156 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
157 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
158 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
159 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
160 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
161 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
162
163 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
164 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 165
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166 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
167
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168* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
169 it understands register description.
170
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171* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
172
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173* X86 general purpose registers
174
175 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
176 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
177 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
178 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
179 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
180
95a42b64 181* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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182 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
183 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
184 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
185 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
186 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 187
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188* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
189 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
190 in the specified file.
191
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192* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
193 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
194 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
195 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
196 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
197 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
198 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
199 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
200 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
201 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
202
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203* New commands
204
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205eval template, expressions...
206 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
207 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
208
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209set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
210show target-file-system-kind
211 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
212 names.
213
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214save breakpoints <filename>
215 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
216 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
217 definitions, use the `source' command.
218
219`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
220is now deprecated.
221
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222info static-tracepoint-markers
223 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
224
225strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
226 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
227 function, line, address, or marker ID.
228
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229* Changed commands
230
231disassemble
232 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
233
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234* Python scripting
235
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236** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
237 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
238 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
239 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
240 GDB using Python' in the manual.
241
adc36818 242** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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243 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
244 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
245 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 246
fa33c3cd 247** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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248 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
249
250** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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251
252** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 253
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254** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
255
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256** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
257 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
258 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
259
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260* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
261there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
262tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
263regular breakpoints.
264
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265* New targets
266
267ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
268
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269* D language support.
270 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
271 language.
272
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273* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
274 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
275 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
276 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
277 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
278
279* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
280 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
281 conditions of the form:
282
283 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
284
285 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
286 interface mentioned above.
287
bfbf3774 288*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 289
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290* C++ Improvements
291
292 ** Namespace Support
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293
294 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
295 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
296 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
297 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
298 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
299
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300 ** Bug Fixes
301
302 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
303 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
304 qualified name.
305
306 ** Cast Operators
307
308 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
309 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
310
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311* New targets
312
313Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 314Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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315
316* New Simulators
317
318Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 319Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 320
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321* Multi-program debugging.
322
323 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
324 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
325 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
326 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
327 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
328 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
329 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
330 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
331
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332* New tracing features
333
334 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
335
336 ** Trace state variables
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337
338 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
339 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
340 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
341 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
342 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
343 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
344 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
345 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
346 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
347 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 348
d5551862 349 ** Fast tracepoints
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350
351 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
352 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
353 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
354 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
355 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
356 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
357 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
358 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
359 the regular trace command.
360
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361 ** Disconnected tracing
362
363 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
364 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
365 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
366 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
367 connection is lost unexpectedly.
368
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369 ** Trace files
370
371 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
372 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
373 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
374 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
375 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
376 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
377 <name>".
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378
379 ** Circular trace buffer
380
381 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
382 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
383 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
384 not be available for all target agents.
385
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386* Changed commands
387
388disassemble
389 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
390 the arguments to be comma-separated.
391
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392info variables
393 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
394 which only declare a variable are not shown.
395
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396source
397 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
398 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
399 support.
400
401 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
402 "set script-extension" (see below).
403
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404* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
405
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406record save [<FILENAME>]
407 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
408 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
409
410record restore <FILENAME>
411 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
412 earlier time, for replay debugging.
413
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414add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
415 Add a new inferior.
416
417clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
418 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
419 inferior has loaded.
420
421remove-inferior ID
422 Remove an inferior.
423
424maint info program-spaces
425 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
426
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427set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
428show remote interrupt-sequence
429 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
430 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
431 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
432 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
433 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
434
435set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
436show remote interrupt-on-connect
437 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
438 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
439 Linux kernel.
440
441set remotebreak [on | off]
442show remotebreak
443Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
444
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445tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
446 Create or modify a trace state variable.
447
448info tvariables
449 List trace state variables and their values.
450
451delete tvariable $NAME ...
452 Delete one or more trace state variables.
453
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454teval EXPR, ...
455 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
456 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
457
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458ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
459 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
460
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461* New expression syntax
462
463 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
464 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
465
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466* New options
467
468set follow-exec-mode new|same
469show follow-exec-mode
470 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
471 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
472 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
473
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474set default-collect EXPR, ...
475show default-collect
476 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
477 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
478 such as registers or a critical global variable.
479
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480set disconnected-tracing
481show disconnected-tracing
482 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
483 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
484 upon disconnection.
485
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486set circular-trace-buffer
487show circular-trace-buffer
488 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
489 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
490 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
491 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
492
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493set script-extension off|soft|strict
494show script-extension
495 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
496 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
497 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
498 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
499 evaluation failed.
500 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
501
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502set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
503show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
504 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
505 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
506 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
507 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
508 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
509 is on.
510
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511* Python API Improvements
512
513 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
514 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
515 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
516
517 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
518 `is_base_class' attribute.
519
520 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
521
522 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
523 evaluate an expression.
524
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525* New remote packets
526
527QTDV
528 Define a trace state variable.
529
530qTV
531 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
532
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533QTDisconnected
534 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
535
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536QTBuffer:circular
537 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
538
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539qTfP, qTsP
540 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
541
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542* Bug fixes
543
544Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
545
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546Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
547much more reliable. In particular:
548 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
549 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
550 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
551 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
552 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
553 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
554 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
555 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
556 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
557 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
558 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
559 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
560 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
561 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
562 non-threaded programs.
563
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564PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
565This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
566libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
567executable program.
568
abc7453d 569*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 570
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571* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
572dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
573them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
574for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
575"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
576
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577* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
578breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
579or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
580the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
581for tracepoint actions.
582
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583* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
584raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
585modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 586
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587* Process record and replay
588
589 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
590 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
591 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
592 execute commands.
593
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594* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
595step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
596set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
597reverse execution.
598
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599* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
600feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
6012.6.28 or later.
602
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603* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
604target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
605char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
606literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
607U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
608`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
609system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
610the installation instructions for more information.
611
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612* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
613remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
614with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
615the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
616
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617* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
618and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
619
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620* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
621now complete on file names.
622
65d12d83
TT
623* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
624completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
625For instance, consider:
626
627 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
628 # struct example variable;
629 (gdb) p variable.
630
631If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
632completions will be "f1" and "f2".
633
edb3359d
DJ
634* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
635the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
636
2fae03e8
TT
637* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
638operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
639macros.
640
47a3467a 641* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
642the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
643implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
644
645* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
646registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
647can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
648and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 649
08388c79
DE
650* New remote packets
651
652qSearch:memory:
653 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
654
a6f3e723
SL
655QStartNoAckMode
656 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
657 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
658 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
659
d7713ae0
EZ
660vKill
661 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
662 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
663
07e059b5
VP
664qXfer:osdata:read
665 Obtains additional operating system information
666
47a3467a
PA
667qXfer:siginfo:read
668qXfer:siginfo:write
669 Read or write additional signal information.
670
060871df
PA
671* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
672
673 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
674 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
675 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
676
c055b101 677* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 678DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
679
680* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
681and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
682`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 683
31fffb02
CS
684* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
685with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
686
88d8a8e0
JB
687* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
688
7f99b190
JB
689* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
690
ccd213ac
DJ
691* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
692which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
693
1fddbabb 694* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 695list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 696
a0ef4274
DJ
697* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
698conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
699have also been fixed.
700
bfb8797a 701* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
702From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
703are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 704
71c25dea
TT
705* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
706example, given:
707
708 template<typename T> class C { };
709 C<char const *> c;
710
711GDB will now correctly handle all of:
712
713 ptype C<char const *>
714 ptype C<char const*>
715 ptype C<const char *>
716 ptype C<const char*>
717
ccd213ac
DJ
718* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
719
720 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
721 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
722
7ae0e2a2
UW
723 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
724 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
725 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
726
a6f3e723
SL
727 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
728 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
729
da8bd9a3
DJ
730 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
731 gdbserver.
732
d70e31dd
DE
733 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
734 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
735
736 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
737 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
738 as appropriate.
739
d57a3c85
TJB
740* Python scripting
741
742 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
743 available is determined at configure time.
744
d8906c6f
TJB
745 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
746
aadc346a
JB
747* Ada tasking support
748
749 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
750 been introduced:
751
752 info tasks
753 Print the list of Ada tasks.
754 info task N
755 Print detailed information about task number N.
756 task
757 Print the task number of the current task.
758 task N
759 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
760
adb483fe
DJ
761* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
762add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
763
2277426b
PA
764* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
765
766 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
767 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
768 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
769 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
770 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
771 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
772 below.
773
08d16641
PA
774* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
775"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
776information.
777
e35359c5
UW
778* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
779to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
780architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
781See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
782more information.
783
85e747d2
UW
784* Multi-architecture debugging.
785
786 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
787 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
788 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
789 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
790 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
791
792* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
793use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
794Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
795powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
796--enable-targets configure option.
797
11ade57a
PA
798* Non-stop mode debugging.
799
800 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
801 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
802 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
803 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
804 section in the user manual for more information.
805
806 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
807 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
808 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
809 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
810 extensions on linux targets.
811
d7713ae0 812* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 813
a96d9b2e
SDJ
814catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
815 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
816 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
817 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
818 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
819 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
820 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
821 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
822 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
823
08388c79
DE
824find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
825 val1 [, val2, ...]
826 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
827
d57a3c85
TJB
828maint set python print-stack
829maint show python print-stack
830 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
831
832python [CODE]
833 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
834
d7713ae0
EZ
835macro define
836macro list
837macro undef
838 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
839 interactively.
840
841info os processes
842 Show operating system information about processes.
843
2277426b
PA
844info inferiors
845 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
846
847inferior NUM
848 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
849
850detach inferior NUM
851 Detach from inferior number NUM.
852
853kill inferior NUM
854 Kill inferior number NUM.
855
d7713ae0
EZ
856* New options
857
3285f3fe
UW
858set spu stop-on-load
859show spu stop-on-load
860 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
861
ff1a52c6
UW
862set spu auto-flush-cache
863show spu auto-flush-cache
864 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
865 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
866
d7713ae0
EZ
867set sh calling-convention
868show sh calling-convention
869 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
870
e0a3ce09 871set debug timestamp
75feb17d 872show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
873 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
874
875set disassemble-next-line
876show disassemble-next-line
877 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
878 the debuggee stops.
879
880set remote noack-packet
881show remote noack-packet
882 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
883 under "New remote packets."
884
885set remote query-attached-packet
886show remote query-attached-packet
887 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
888
889set remote read-siginfo-object
890show remote read-siginfo-object
891 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
892 packet.
893
894set remote write-siginfo-object
895show remote write-siginfo-object
896 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
897 packet.
898
40ab02ce
MS
899set remote reverse-continue
900show remote reverse-continue
901 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
902
903set remote reverse-step
904show remote reverse-step
905 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
906
d7713ae0
EZ
907set displaced-stepping
908show displaced-stepping
909 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
910 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
911 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
912
913set debug displaced
914show debug displaced
915 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
916
917maint set internal-error
918maint show internal-error
919 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
920
921maint set internal-warning
922maint show internal-warning
923 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 924
ccd213ac
DJ
925set exec-wrapper
926show exec-wrapper
927unset exec-wrapper
928 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 929
aad4b048
JB
930set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
931show multiple-symbols
932 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
933 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
934 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
935
74960c60
VP
936set breakpoint always-inserted
937show breakpoint always-inserted
938 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
939 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
940 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
941
0428b8f5
DJ
942set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
943show arm fallback-mode
944set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
945show arm force-mode
946 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
947 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
948 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
949 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
950
10568435
JK
951set disable-randomization
952show disable-randomization
953 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
954 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
955 multiple debugging sessions.
956
d7713ae0
EZ
957set non-stop
958show non-stop
959 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
960 a breakpoint.
961
b3eb342c 962set target-async
d7713ae0 963show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
964 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
965 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
966 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
967 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
968
6c7a06a3
TT
969set target-wide-charset
970show target-wide-charset
971 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
972 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
973
84603566
SL
974set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
975show tcp auto-retry
976set tcp connect-timeout
977show tcp connect-timeout
978 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
979 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
980 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
981
17a37d48
PP
982set libthread-db-search-path
983show libthread-db-search-path
984 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
985 libthread_db.
986
d4db2f36
PA
987set schedule-multiple (on|off)
988show schedule-multiple
989 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
990 the current process.
991
4e5d721f
DE
992set stack-cache
993show stack-cache
994 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
995 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
996 affecting correctness.
997
910c5da8
JB
998set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
999show interactive-mode
1000 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1001 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1002 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1003 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1004 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1005
2277426b
PA
1006* Removed commands
1007
1008info forks
1009 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1010 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1011 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1012 command.
1013
1014fork NUM
1015 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1016 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1017 alias for the `fork' command.
1018
1019process PID
1020 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1021 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1022 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1023
1024delete fork NUM
1025 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1026 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1027 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1028 fork' command.
1029
1030detach fork NUM
1031 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1032 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1033 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1034 fork' command.
1035
a80b95ba
TG
1036* New native configurations
1037
1038x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1039
b8bfd3ed
JB
1040x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1041
75a2d5e7
TT
1042* New targets
1043
c28c63d8 1044Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1045x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1046x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1047S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1048
6de3146c
PA
1049* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1050 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1051
d5cbbe6e
JB
1052* Removed commands
1053
1054catch load
1055catch unload
1056 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1057
75feb17d 1058*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1059
af5ca30d
NH
1060* New native configurations
1061
1062NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1063Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1064
1065* New targets
1066
1067NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1068Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1069
7a404eba
PA
1070* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1071
1072 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1073 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1074 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1075 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1076
430ebac9
PA
1077* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1078(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1079
fe6fbf8b 1080* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1081is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1082
1083* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1084including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1085and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1086
10665d76
JB
1087* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1088accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1089more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1090
7cc46491
DJ
1091* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1092
d71340b8
DJ
1093* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1094registers on PowerPC targets.
1095
523c4513
DJ
1096* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1097targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1098
a6b151f1
DJ
1099* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1100commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1101
2d717e4f
DJ
1102* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1103extended-remote mode.
1104
24a836bd 1105* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1106The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1107error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1108The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1109
d0c678e6
UW
1110* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1111building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1112target architectures.
1113
d64a946d
TJB
1114* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1115Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1116now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1117stored in two consecutive float registers.
1118
ee163bf5
VP
1119* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1120breakpoints now.
1121
b93b6ca7 1122* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1123Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1124include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1125 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1126 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1127 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1128 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1129 of an assignment
1130 - Improved command completion in Ada
1131 - Several bug fixes
1132
d001be7a
DJ
1133* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1134process.
1135
a6b151f1
DJ
1136* New commands
1137
6d53d0af
JB
1138set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1139show print frame-arguments
1140 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1141 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1142
a6b151f1
DJ
1143remote put
1144remote get
1145remote delete
1146 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1147
1148* New MI commands
1149
1150-target-file-put
1151-target-file-get
1152-target-file-delete
1153 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1154
1155* New remote packets
1156
1157vFile:open:
1158vFile:close:
1159vFile:pread:
1160vFile:pwrite:
1161vFile:unlink:
1162 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1163
2d717e4f
DJ
1164vAttach
1165 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1166 mode.
1167
1168vRun
1169 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1170
8d5f9c6f 1171*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1172
19d378fc
MS
1173* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1174bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1175Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1176
3a40aaa0
UW
1177* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1178symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1179-Bsymbolic linker option.
1180
a6ec25f2
BW
1181* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1182recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1183is not supported.
1184
6dd09645
JB
1185* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1186frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1187
c9bb8148
DJ
1188* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
118932-bit or 64-bit register values.
1190
0d5de010
DJ
1191* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1192
23181151
DJ
1193* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1194target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1195a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1196
ea37ba09
DJ
1197* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1198automatically displayed as character or string data.
1199
1200* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1201arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1202as strings.
e1f48ead 1203
123dc839
DJ
1204* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1205for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1206only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1207
05a4558a
DJ
1208* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1209iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1210
7c963485
PA
1211* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1212ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1213has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1214
b18be20d
DJ
1215* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1216
0ca420ce
UW
1217* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1218
31d99776
DJ
1219* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1220layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1221segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1222
a4642986
MR
1223* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1224immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1225
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1226* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1227"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1228packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1229where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1230Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1231
1232* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1233(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1234
1235* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1236according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1237
c9bb8148
DJ
1238* New commands
1239
23776285
MR
1240set remoteflow
1241show remoteflow
1242 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1243 when debugging using remote targets.
1244
c9bb8148
DJ
1245set mem inaccessible-by-default
1246show mem inaccessible-by-default
1247 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1248 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1249 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1250 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1251 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1252
1253set breakpoint auto-hw
1254show breakpoint auto-hw
1255 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1256 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1257 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1258 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1259 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1260 including "next" and "finish".
1261
0e420bd8
JB
1262catch exception
1263catch exception unhandled
1264 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1265
1266catch assert
1267 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1268
f822c95b
DJ
1269set sysroot
1270show sysroot
1271 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1272 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1273 an alias to "set sysroot".
1274
83cc5c53
UW
1275info spu
1276 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1277 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1278 architecture.
1279
bd372731
MK
1280* New native configurations
1281
1282OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1283
23181151
DJ
1284set tdesc filename
1285unset tdesc filename
1286show tdesc filename
1287 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1288 not query the target for its built-in description.
1289
c9bb8148
DJ
1290* New targets
1291
54fe9172 1292OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1293MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1294Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1295
6dd09645
JB
1296* New remote packets
1297
1298QPassSignals:
1299 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1300 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1301
23181151
DJ
1302qXfer:features:read:
1303 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1304 features.
6dd09645 1305
83cc5c53
UW
1306qXfer:spu:read:
1307qXfer:spu:write:
1308 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1309 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1310
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1311qXfer:libraries:read:
1312 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1313 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1314 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1315 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1316
483367ee
DJ
1317* Removed targets
1318
1319Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1320
d08950c4
UW
1321alpha*-*-osf1*
1322alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1323d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1324hppa*-*-hiux*
1325i[34567]86-ncr-*
1326i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1327i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1328i[34567]86-*-netware*
1329i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1330i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1331i[34567]86-*-sco*
1332i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1333i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1334i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1335i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1336i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1337i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1338i[34567]86-*-isc*
1339m68*-cisco*-*
1340m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1341mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1342rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1343sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1344
7ce59000
DJ
1345* Other removed features
1346
1347target abug
1348target cpu32bug
1349target est
1350target rom68k
1351
1352 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1353
ea35711c
DJ
1354target hms
1355target e7000
1356target sh3
1357target sh3e
1358
1359 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1360 H8/300.
1361
1362target ocd
1363
1364 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1365 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1366 interfaces.
1367
7ce59000
DJ
1368DWARF 1 support
1369
1370 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1371 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1372
54d61198
DJ
1373Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1374
1375 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1376 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1377 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1378 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1379
ea35711c
DJ
1380MIPS ".pdr" sections
1381
1382 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1383 in debugging information.
1384
1385Scheme support
1386
1387 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1388 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1389
1a69e1e4
DJ
1390set mips stack-arg-size
1391set mips saved-gpreg-size
1392
1393 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1394
6dd09645 1395*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1396
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1397* New targets
1398
1399Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1400Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1401
6aec2e11
DJ
1402* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1403(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1404running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1405
1406* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1407Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1408supported.
1409
17218d91
DJ
1410* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1411broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1412
9ebce043
DJ
1413* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1414stub provides the required support.
1415
7d3d3ece
DJ
1416* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1417longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1418
4f8253f3
JB
1419* New commands
1420
1421set substitute-path
1422unset substitute-path
1423show substitute-path
1424 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1425 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1426 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1427 between compilation and debugging.
1428
9fa66fd7
AS
1429set trace-commands
1430show trace-commands
1431 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1432 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1433 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1434
1f5befc1
DJ
1435* REMOVED features
1436
1437The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1438
2ec3381a
DJ
1439Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1440an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1441
3d00d119
DJ
1442The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1443
be2a5f71
DJ
1444* New remote packets
1445
1446qSupported:
1447 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1448 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1449 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1450 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1451 target.
1452
0876f84a
DJ
1453qXfer:auxv:read:
1454 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1455 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1456
9ebce043
DJ
1457qXfer:memory-map:read:
1458 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1459 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1460
1461vFlashErase:
1462vFlashWrite:
1463vFlashDone:
1464 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1465
0876f84a
DJ
1466* Removed remote packets
1467
1468qPart:auxv:read:
1469 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1470 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1471
e374b601 1472*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1473
96309189
MS
1474* New targets
1475
1476Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1477
1478Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1479
53e5f3cf
AS
1480* New commands
1481
1482init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1483 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1484
ac264b3b
MS
1485The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1486
1487checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1488
1489restart <n> Return the program state to a
1490 previously saved state.
1491
1492info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1493
1494delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1495
1496set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1497 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1498
1499info forks List forks of the user program that
1500 are available to be debugged.
1501
1502fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1503 forks of the user program that are
1504 available to be debugged.
1505
1506delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1507 that are available to be debugged (and
1508 kill the forked process).
1509
1510detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1511 that are available to be debugged (and
1512 allow the process to continue).
1513
3950dc3f
NS
1514* New architecture
1515
1516Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1517
0ea3f30e
DJ
1518* Improved Windows host support
1519
1520GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1521native console support, and remote communications using either
1522network sockets or serial ports.
1523
f79daebb
GM
1524* Improved Modula-2 language support
1525
1526GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1527basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1528pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1529printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1530written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1531GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1532
acab6ab2
MM
1533* REMOVED features
1534
1535The ARM rdi-share module.
1536
f4267320
DJ
1537The Netware NLM debug server.
1538
53e5f3cf 1539*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1540
e0ecbda1
MK
1541* New native configurations
1542
02a677ac 1543OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1544OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1545
d64a6579
KB
1546* New targets
1547
1548Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1549
b33a6190
AS
1550* New command line options
1551
1552--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1553--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1554 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1555--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1556 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1557 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1558 with the --command (-x) option.
1559
11dced61
AC
1560* Deprecated commands removed
1561
1562The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1563removed:
1564
1565 Command Replacement
1566 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1567 othernames set arm disassembler
1568 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1569 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1570 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1571 regs info registers
1572
6fe85783
MK
1573* New BSD user-level threads support
1574
1575It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1576library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1577configurations are:
1578
1579FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1580FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1581OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1582
1583Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1584are not yet supported.
1585
5260ca71
MS
1586* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1587(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1588
e84ecc99
AC
1589* REMOVED configurations and files
1590
1591VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1592Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1593National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1594
31e35378
JB
1595* New "set print array-indexes" command
1596
1597After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1598when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1599behavior.
1600
e85e5c83
MK
1601* VAX floating point support
1602
1603GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1604
d91e9901
AS
1605* User-defined command support
1606
1607In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1608to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1609section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1610
f2cb65ca
MC
1611*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1612
f47b1503
AS
1613* New command line option
1614
1615GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1616debugging.
1617
f2cb65ca
MC
1618* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1619
1620GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1621information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1622by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1623proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1624to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1625
d08c0230
AC
1626* Internationalization
1627
1628When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1629internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1630continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1631
117ea3cf
PH
1632* Ada
1633
1634Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1635implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1636into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1637
d08c0230
AC
1638* New native configurations
1639
1640GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1641
1642* Remote 'p' packet
1643
1644GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1645packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1646
1647* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1648
1649GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1650The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1651features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1652i386 application).
1653
1654GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1655compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1656continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1657configurations:
1658
1659hppa-*-hpux
1660ia64-*-aix
1661mips-*-irix*
1662*-*-lynx
1663mips-*-linux-gnu
1664sds protocol
1665xdr protocol
1666powerpc bdm protocol
1667
1668Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1669made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1670
1671* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1672
1673Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1674been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1675configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1676permanently REMOVED.
1677
1678h8300-*-*
1679mcore-*-*
1680mn10300-*-*
1681ns32k-*-*
1682sh64-*-*
1683v850-*-*
1684
ebb7c577
AC
1685*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1686
1687* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1688
1689When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1690heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1691been fixed.
1692
1693* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1694
1695When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1696fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1697IRIX long double values).
1698
1699* VAX and "next"
1700
1701A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1702command. This problem has been fixed.
1703
860660cb 1704*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1705
0dea2468
AC
1706* Fix for ``many threads''
1707
1708On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1709rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1710error message:
1711
1712 ptrace: No such process.
1713 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1714
1715This problem has been fixed.
1716
2c07db7a
AC
1717* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1718
1719Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1720GDB to dump core).
1721
c23968a2
JB
1722* New ``start'' command.
1723
1724This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1725
71009278
MK
1726* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1727
1728Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1729live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1730platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1731
1732FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1733FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1734NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1735NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1736NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1737OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1738OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1739OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1740OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1741
3c0b7db2
AC
1742* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1743
1744Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1745These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1746of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1747call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1748signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1749
73cc75f3
AC
1750Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1751features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1752include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1753
7243600a
BF
1754* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1755
6f606e1c
MK
1756* New native configurations
1757
97dc871c 1758GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1759OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1760OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1761OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1762OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1763NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1764OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1765
a1b461bf
AC
1766* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1767
1768GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1769The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1770including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1771migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1772compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1773work, was also included.
1774
1775GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1776module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1777
1778h8300-*-*
1779mcore-*-*
1780mn10300-*-*
1781ns32k-*-*
1782sh64-*-*
1783v850-*-*
1784xstormy16-*-*
1785
1786Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1787made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1788
3c7012f5
AC
1789* REMOVED configurations and files
1790
1791Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1792Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1793Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1794Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1795Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1796AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1797Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1798decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1799riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1800sonymips mips-sony-*
1801sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1802
e5fe55f7
AC
1803*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1804
1805* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1806
1807The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1808GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1809command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1810program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1811with GDB".
1812
1813* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1814
1815Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1816libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1817cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1818GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1819shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1820the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1821are created.
1822
1823Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1824
1825* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1826
1827The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1828non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1829compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1830
1831* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1832
1833Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1834wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1835
1836* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1837
1838The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1839permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1840systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1841
1842* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1843
1844Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1845has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1846
1847* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1848
1849GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1850its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1851panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1852
1853* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1854
1855When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1856by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1857not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1858
faae5abe 1859*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1860
9175c9a3
MC
1861* Removed --with-mmalloc
1862
1863Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1864conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1865
3cc87ec0
MK
1866* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1867
1868The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1869the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1870and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1871you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1872
f0424ef6
MK
1873* Revised SPARC target
1874
1875The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1876FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1877support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1878from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1879(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1880
59659be2
ILT
1881* New C++ demangler
1882
1883GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1884names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1885with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1886programs.
1887
9e08b29b
DJ
1888* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1889
1890GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1891arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1892encountered these.
1893
8dfe8985
DC
1894* C++ nested types and namespaces
1895
1896GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1897improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1898is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1899Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1900namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1901"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1902frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1903if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1904GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1905
cced5e27
MK
1906* New native configurations
1907
1908NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1909OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1910OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1911OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1912OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1913
b4b4b794
KI
1914* New debugging protocols
1915
1916M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1917
7989c619
AC
1918* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1919
1920The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1921and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1922tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1923
5994185b
AC
1924* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1925
1926Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1927been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1928configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1929permanently REMOVED.
1930
1931Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1932Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1933Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1934Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1935Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1936AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1937Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1938decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1939riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1940sonymips mips-sony-*
1941sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1942
0ddabb4c
AC
1943* REMOVED configurations and files
1944
1945SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1946SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1947Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1948Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1949H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1950HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1951HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1952HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1953PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1954386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1955Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1956 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1957 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1958SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1959SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1960Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1961Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1962
c7f1390e
DJ
1963*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1964
1fe43d45
AC
1965* Objective-C
1966
1967Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1968integrated into GDB.
1969
e6beb428
AC
1970* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1971
1972DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1973information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1974By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1975backtraces.
1976
1977The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1978have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1979DWARF 2 CFI support.
1980
1981* Hosted file I/O.
1982
1983GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1984file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1985remote protocol documentation for details.
1986
1987* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1988
1989All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1990architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1991to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1992ppc32 on ppc64).
1993
1994* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1995
1996GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1997per-thread variables.
1998
1999* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2000
2001GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2002GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2003
2004* Separate debug info.
2005
2006GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2007automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2008of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2009system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2010and optional debug files.
2011
2012* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2013
2014DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2015describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2016debugger.
2017
2018GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2019for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2020
2021* Java
2022
2023A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2024Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2025considered "useable".
2026
85f8f974
DJ
2027* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2028
2029The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2030commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2031kernel.
2032
0fac0b41
DJ
2033* GDB supports logging output to a file
2034
2035There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2036used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2037
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2038* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2039
2040The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2041disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2042command.
2043
e286caf2 2044* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2045
2046The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2047registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2048
d28f9cdf
DJ
2049* Profiling support
2050
2051A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2052be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2053session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2054"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2055data, for more informative profiling results.
2056
da0f9dcd
AC
2057* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2058
2059The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2060option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2061"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2062
2063Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2064removed.
2065
fb9b6b35
JJ
2066Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2067Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2068Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2069 in a subsequent -var-update.
2070
954a4db8
MK
2071* New native configurations.
2072
2073FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2074
6760f9e6
JB
2075* Multi-arched targets.
2076
b4263afa 2077HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2078Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2079
1b831c93
AC
2080* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2081
2082Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2083been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2084configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2085permanently REMOVED.
2086
8b0e5691 2087Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2088Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2089H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2090HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2091HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2092HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2093PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2094Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2095 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2096 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2097Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2098Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2099
5835abe7
NC
2100* REMOVED configurations and files
2101
2102V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2103Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2104IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2105i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2106i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2107i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2108HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2109 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2110 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2111Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2112Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2113Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2114OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2115I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2116
a094c6fb
AC
2117* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2118
2119The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2120the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2121context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2122address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2123The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2124
299ffc64 2125*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2126
46248966
AC
2127* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2128
2129When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2130`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2131in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2132library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2133shared libs like mad''.
2134
b9d14705 2135* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2136
b9d14705
DJ
2137Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2138the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2139arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2140powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2141
e0e9281e
JB
2142* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2143
2144GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2145and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2146they expand.
2147
dd73b9bb
AC
2148The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2149invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2150
2151The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2152macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2153
e0e9281e
JB
2154Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2155information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2156your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2157information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2158
2250ee0c
CV
2159* Multi-arched targets.
2160
6e3ba3b8
JT
2161DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2162DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2163NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2164National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2165Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2166Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2167
cd9bfe15 2168* New targets.
e33ce519 2169
456f8b9d
DB
2170Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2171
e33ce519 2172
da8ca43d
JT
2173* New native configurations
2174
2175Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2176SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2177MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2178UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2179
cd9bfe15
AC
2180* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2181
2182Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2183been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2184configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2185permanently REMOVED.
2186
92eb23c5 2187Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2188OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2189IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2190Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2191Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2192Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2193i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2194i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2195i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2196HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2197 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2198 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2199I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2200
db034ac5
AC
2201* OBSOLETE languages
2202
2203CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2204
cd9bfe15
AC
2205* REMOVED configurations and files
2206
2207AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2208A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2209AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2210AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2211AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2212
2213testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2214
20f01a46
DH
2215* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2216
2217This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2218commands. The default is 1024.
2219
a5941fbf
MK
2220* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2221
2222Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2223
89743e04
MS
2224* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2225
2226These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2227to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2228from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2229
9fb14e79
JB
2230* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2231
2232The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2233including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2234of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2235
2037aebb
AC
2236*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2237
2238* New targets.
2239
2240Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2241
2242* Bug fixes
2243
2244gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2245mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2246Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2247
2248gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2249dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2250Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2251
2252Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2253Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2254By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2255
2256i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2257avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2258By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2259
37057839 2260*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2261
1a703748
MS
2262* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2263
2264This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2265really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2266In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2267target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2268This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2269(notably embedded) targets.
2270
cefd4ef5
MS
2271* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2272
55241689
AC
2273This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2274process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2275GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2276hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2277
352ed7b4
MS
2278* New command line option
2279
2280GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2281
2282* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2283
2284There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2285command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2286a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2287be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2288open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2289issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2290a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2291it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2292GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2293is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2294
fe419ffc
RE
2295* Changes in ARM configurations.
2296
2297Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2298configuration is fully multi-arch.
2299
eb7cedd9
MK
2300* New native configurations
2301
fe419ffc 2302ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2303x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2304AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2305Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2306
c9f63e6b
CV
2307* New targets
2308
2309Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2310
9b4ff276
AC
2311* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2312
2313Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2314been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2315configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2316permanently REMOVED.
2317
2318AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2319A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2320AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2321AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2322AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2323
b4ceaee6 2324testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2325
e2caac18
AC
2326* REMOVED configurations and files
2327
2328TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2329WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2330PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2331PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2332PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2333Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2334Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2335 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2336SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2337Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2338Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2339ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2340Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2341
c2a727fa
TT
2342* Changes to command line processing
2343
2344The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2345for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2346
467d8519
TT
2347* Changes to key bindings
2348
2349There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2350
7072a954
AC
2351*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2352
2353Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2354
2355Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2356corrupted.
2357
2358Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2359
2360Numerous documentation fixes.
2361
2362Numerous testsuite fixes.
2363
34f47bc4 2364*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2365
2366* New native configurations
2367
2368Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2369x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2370MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2371MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2372ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2373s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2374
bf64bfd6
AC
2375* New targets
2376
def90278 2377Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2378CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2379UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2380
17e78a56 2381* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2382
2383x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2384Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2385Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2386 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2387TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2388WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2389Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2390PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2391PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2392PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2393SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2394Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2395ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2396Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2397
17e78a56
AC
2398stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2399kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2400
7fcca85b
AC
2401Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2402been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2403configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2404permanently REMOVED.
2405
a196c81c 2406* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2407
2408Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2409Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2410Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2411ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2412Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2413ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2414
6d6b80e5 2415* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2416
6d6b80e5 2417GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2418sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2419present.
2420
bf64bfd6
AC
2421* Other news:
2422
e23194cb
EZ
2423* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2424
2425* The MI enabled by default.
2426
2427The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2428revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2429engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2430using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2431which is now deprecated.
2432
2433* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2434
2435GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2436main features are supported:
2437
2438 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2439
2440 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2441 extension;
2442
2443 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2444
2445 - a Pascal expression parser.
2446
2447However, some important features are not yet supported.
2448
2449 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2450
2451 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2452
2453 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2454 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2455
2456 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2457
2458 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2459
2460* Changes in completion.
2461
2462Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2463to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2464users expect at the shell prompt.
2465
2466Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2467`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2468program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2469files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2470be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2471considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2472name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2473
2474`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2475
2476* New platform-independent commands:
2477
2478It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2479hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2480documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2481
2482* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2483
d7275149
MK
2484Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2485revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2486many threads as your system allows you to have.
2487
e23194cb
EZ
2488Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2489
d7275149
MK
2490Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2491multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2492
2493* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2494
2495Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2496
e23194cb
EZ
2497GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2498debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2499supported.)
2500
2501* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2502
2503Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2504breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2505implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2506put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2507and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2508registers.
2509
2510The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2511debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2512watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2513
2514* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2515
2516New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2517the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2518
2519New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2520display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2521IDT.
2522
2523New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2524from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2525New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2526a given linear address.
2527
2528GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2529program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2530which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2531
2532DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2533
6c56c069
EZ
2534It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2535
e23194cb
EZ
2536* Changes in documentation.
2537
2538All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2539Documentation License.
2540
2541Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2542manual.
2543
2544TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2545
2546Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2547manual.
2548
2549The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2550documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2551hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2552
5d6640b1
AC
2553* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2554
2555The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2556``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2557contents of this file.
2558
1a1d8446
AC
2559* gdba.el deleted
2560
2561GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2562
9debab2f 2563*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2564
c63ce875
EZ
2565* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2566
2567Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2568programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2569displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2570greater level of detail.
2571
2572* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2573
2574It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2575bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2576on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2577written.
2578
2579* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2580
2581The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2582necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2583machines ``out of the box''.
2584
2585The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2586possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2587signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2588would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2589interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2590
2591It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2592standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2593even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2594and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2595terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2596
2597The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2598enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2599also works.
2600
2601DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2602GDB.
2603
2604It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2605directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2606times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2607breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2608
ed9a39eb
JM
2609* New native configurations
2610
2611ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2612PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2613
7a292a7a
SS
2614* New targets
2615
96baa820 2616Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2617x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2618PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2619TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2620
085dd6e6
JM
2621* OBSOLETE configurations
2622
2623Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2624Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2625Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2626ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2627Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2628
9debab2f
AC
2629Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2630but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2631these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2632be permanently REMOVED.
2633
5330533d
SS
2634* Gould support removed
2635
2636Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2637
bc9e5bbf
AC
2638* New features for SVR4
2639
2640On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2641without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2642load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2643
2644* Many C++ enhancements
2645
2646C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2647in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2648
adf40b2e
JM
2649* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2650
2651A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2652sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2653with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2654``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2655
2656 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2657 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2658
43e526b9
JM
2659* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2660
2661A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2662expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2663instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2664
2665The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2666added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2667
96baa820
JM
2668* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2669
2670The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2671``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2672include ``set remote P-packet''.
2673
11cf8741
JM
2674* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2675
2676The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2677accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2678``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2679
7876dd43
DB
2680* ``apropos'' command added.
2681
2682The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2683documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2684try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2685
bc9e5bbf
AC
2686* New MI interface
2687
2688A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2689interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2690process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2691"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2692enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2693
2694 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2695
c906108c
SS
2696*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2697
2698* New native configurations
2699
2700HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2701HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2702M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2703
2704* New targets
2705
2706Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2707Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2708Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2709
2710* OBSOLETE configurations
2711
2712Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2713
2714Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2715but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2716these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2717be permanently REMOVED.
2718
2719* ANSI/ISO C
2720
2721As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2722buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2723containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2724use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2725available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2726configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2727information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2728already.
2729
2730* Readline 2.2
2731
2732GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2733
2734* set extension-language
2735
2736You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2737languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2738you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2739 set extension-language .c c++
2740The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2741and their associated languages.
2742
2743* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2744
2745When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2746you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2747PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2748
2749 set processor NAME
2750
2751sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2752following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2753
2754 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2755 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2756 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2757 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2758 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2759 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2760 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2761 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2762 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2763 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2764 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2765
2766At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2767special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2768registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2769only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2770
2771* HP-UX support
2772
2773Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2774more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2775library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2776support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2777for xdb and dbx commands.
2778
2779* Catchpoints
2780
2781HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2782generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2783to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2784
2785This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2786argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2787output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2788
2789* Debugging across forks
2790
2791On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2792in the inferior.
2793
2794* TUI
2795
2796HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2797it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2798configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2799
2800* GDB remote protocol additions
2801
2802A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2803Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2804fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2805allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2806
2807For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2808full 64-bit address. The command
2809
2810 set remoteaddresssize 32
2811
2812can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2813the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2814will be discarded.
2815
2816In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2817command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2818
2819 maint packet heythere
2820
2821sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2822disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2823time.
2824
2825The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2826target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2827downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2828
2829* Tracing can collect general expressions
2830
2831You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2832further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2833doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2834
2835* mask-address variable for Mips
2836
2837For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2838a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2839of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2840
2841* Higher serial baud rates
2842
2843GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2844230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2845to achieve all of these rates.)
2846
2847* i960 simulator
2848
2849The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2850builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2851
2852
2853*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2854
2855* New native configurations
2856
2857Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2858Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2859Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2860PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2861PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2862Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2863Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2864
2865* New targets
2866
2867Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2868Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2869Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2870Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2871MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2872MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2873MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2874Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2875Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2876Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2877NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2878
2879* New debugging protocols
2880
2881ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2882M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2883DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2884PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2885PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2886Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2887
2888* DWARF 2
2889
2890All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2891format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2892information.
2893
2894* Java frontend
2895
2896GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2897only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2898
2899* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2900
2901For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2902loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2903locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2904
2905* Live range splitting
2906
2907GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2908range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2909more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2910
2911* Hurd support
2912
2913GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2914updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2915
2916* ARM Thumb support
2917
2918GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2919instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2920instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2921accordingly.
2922
2923* MIPS16 support
2924
2925GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2926instruction set.
2927
2928* Overlay support
2929
2930GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2931linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2932will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2933control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2934additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2935in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2936
2937* info symbol
2938
2939The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2940the symbol at the specified address.
2941
2942* Trace support
2943
2944The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2945asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2946extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2947includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2948file tracepoint.c for more details.
2949
2950* MIPS simulator
2951
2952Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2953by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2954of most MIPS variants.
2955
2956* Sparc simulator
2957
2958Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2959by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2960Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2961
2962* set architecture
2963
2964For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2965basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2966architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2967the possible architectures.
2968
2969*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2970
2971* New native configurations
2972
2973Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2974M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2975PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2976PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2977PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2978RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2979
2980* New targets
2981
2982ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2983I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2984MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2985MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2986PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2987Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2988Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2989
2990* PowerPC simulator
2991
2992The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2993contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2994PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2995basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2996performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2997
2998* Solaris 2.5
2999
3000GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3001
3002* Windows 95/NT native
3003
3004GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3005To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3006which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3007Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3008ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3009
3010* dont-repeat command
3011
3012If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3013command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3014useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3015extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3016
3017* Send break instead of ^C
3018
3019The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3020rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3021GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3022
3023* Remote protocol timeout
3024
3025The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3026that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3027to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3028
3029* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3030
3031By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3032loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3033stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3034when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3035in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3036
3037Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3038/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3039automatically on hpux10.
3040
3041* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3042
3043Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3044
3045* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3046
3047When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3048may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3049the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3050every character. The default value is 1050.
3051
3052* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3053
3054If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3055a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3056replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3057details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3058remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3059to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3060
3061* Speedups for remote debugging
3062
3063GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3064the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3065and more efficient S-record downloading.
3066
3067* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3068
3069GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3070Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3071
3072*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3073
3074* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3075
3076The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3077can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3078
3079* Remote targets use caching
3080
3081Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3082remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3083it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3084debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3085off' turns the the data cache off.
3086
3087* Remote targets may have threads
3088
3089The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3090in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3091gdb/remote.c for details.
3092
3093* NetROM support
3094
3095If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3096support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3097acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3098write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3099support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3100another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3101sequence is something like
3102
3103 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3104 load <prog>
3105 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3106
3107* Macintosh host
3108
3109GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3110may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3111it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3112available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3113device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3114directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3115scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3116mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3117
3118* Autoconf
3119
3120GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3121but does simplify configuration and building.
3122
3123* hpux10
3124
3125GDB now supports hpux10.
3126
3127*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3128
3129* New native configurations
3130
3131x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3132x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3133NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3134Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3135
3136* New targets
3137
3138A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3139HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3140CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3141PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3142WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3143
3144* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3145
3146GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3147possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3148filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3149the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3150if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3151
3152* Arguments to user-defined commands
3153
3154User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3155Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3156trivial example:
3157define adder
3158 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3159
3160To execute the command use:
3161adder 1 2 3
3162
3163Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3164Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3165use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3166
3167* New `if' and `while' commands
3168
3169This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3170commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3171expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3172execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3173terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3174`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3175if the expression is zero.
3176
3177* Fortran source language mode
3178
3179GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3180Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3181variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3182with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3183Fortran compilers.
3184
3185* Better HPUX support
3186
3187Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3188running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3189processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3190for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3191that behavior do the following before running the program:
3192
3193 adb -w a.out
3194 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3195 control-d
3196
3197This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3198To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3199
3200 adb -w a.out
3201 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3202 control-d
3203
3204You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3205the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3206external linkage.
3207
3208GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3209HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3210
3211* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3212
3213You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3214commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3215current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3216"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3217associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3218configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3219
3220* New DOS host serial code
3221
3222This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3223no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3224a PC's serial port.
3225
3226*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3227
3228* New "complete" command
3229
3230This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3231were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3232
3233* Trailing space optional in prompt
3234
3235"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3236allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3237
3238* Breakpoint hit counts
3239
3240"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3241has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3242can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3243to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3244less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3245that breakpoint.
3246
3247* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3248
3249"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3250an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3251arrays actually contain only short strings.
3252
3253* Shared library breakpoints
3254
3255In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3256breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3257
3258* Hardware watchpoints
3259
3260There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3261targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3262
55241689 3263Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3264
3265* Annotations
3266
3267Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3268and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3269
3270* Improved Irix 5 support
3271
3272GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3273
3274* Improved HPPA support
3275
3276GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3277
3278* New native configurations
3279
3280Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3281HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3282Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3283RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3284
3285* New targets
3286
3287OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3288MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3289Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3290
3291* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3292
3293There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3294This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3295
3296* Fixes
3297
3298As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3299and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3300
3301*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3302
3303* Irix 5 is now supported
3304
3305* HPPA support
3306
3307GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3308to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3309GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3310of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3311can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3312
3313
3314*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3315
3316* User visible changes:
3317
3318* Remote Debugging
3319
3320The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3321target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3322debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3323integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3324debugging info for the mips target).
3325
3326* DEC Alpha native support
3327
3328GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3329debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3330work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3331Alpha-specific notes.
3332
3333* Preliminary thread implementation
3334
3335GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3336
3337* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3338
3339This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3340to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3341for details).
3342
3343* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3344
3345This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3346mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3347call methods, ...etc.
3348
3349*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3350
3351 * User visible changes:
3352
3353Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3354supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3355other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3356somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3357
3358Filename completion now works.
3359
3360When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3361arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3362addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3363
3364All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3365vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3366should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3367your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3368to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3369
3370 * DEC alpha support
3371
3372This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3373cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3374
3375
3376*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3377
3378 * Testsuite
3379
3380This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3381The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3382via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3383
3384 * C++ demangling
3385
3386'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3387emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3388Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3389disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3390use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3391
3392 * Simulators
3393
3394GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3395So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3396Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3397
3398 * New targets supported
3399
3400H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3401H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3402SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3403Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3404IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3405
3406Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3407version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3408GO32 memory extender.
3409
3410 * New remote protocols
3411
3412MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3413
3414 * New source languages supported
3415
3416This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3417used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3418into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3419
3420
3421*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3422
3423 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3424
3425GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3426version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3427University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3428compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3429format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3430(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3431
3432Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3433
3434 * Faster and better demangling
3435
3436We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3437demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3438character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3439only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3440This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3441increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3442symbol lookups.
3443
3444`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3445from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3446compiler does not actually implement.
3447
3448 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3449
3450In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3451inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3452recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3453very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3454The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3455circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3456fix.
3457
3458The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3459release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3460
3461 * Improved configure script
3462
3463The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3464you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3465host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3466done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3467
3468We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3469version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3470`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3471The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3472only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3473We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3474
3475 * Documentation improvements
3476
3477There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3478produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3479before submitting changes.
3480
3481The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3482M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3483`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3484you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3485a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3486
3487*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3488We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3489been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3490or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3491`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3492around this problem.
3493
3494 * New features
3495
3496GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3497the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3498`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3499the target program.
3500
3501The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3502how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3503
3504 * New native hosts supported
3505
3506HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3507386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3508
3509 * New targets supported
3510
3511AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3512
3513 * New file formats supported
3514
3515BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3516HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3517
3518 * Major bug fixes
3519
3520Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3521
3522We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3523printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3524
3525We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3526for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3527release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3528
3529You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3530will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3531
3532We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3533for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3534especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3535libraries.
3536
3537The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3538information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3539command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3540any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3541when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3542
3543 * Internal improvements
3544
3545GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3546debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3547
3548GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3549Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3550symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3551contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3552shared code that handles any of them.
3553
3554 * New command line options
3555
3556We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3557
3558 * Mmalloc licensing
3559
3560The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3561General Public License.
3562
3563*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3564
3565 * Host/native/target split
3566
3567GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3568hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3569target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3570local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3571ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3572
3573The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3574GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3575is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3576code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3577any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3578built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3579handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3580
3581GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3582It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3583plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3584
3585 * New hosts supported
3586
3587HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3588386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3589386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3590
3591 * New targets supported
3592
3593Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
359468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3595
3596 * New native hosts supported
3597
3598386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3599 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3600386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3601
3602 * New file formats supported
3603
3604BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3605supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3606format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3607
3608 * New commands
3609
3610`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3611`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3612These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3613
3614`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3615
3616You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3617scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3618prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3619executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3620
3621 * C++ improvements
3622
3623We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3624info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3625symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3626
3627Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3628
3629 * Major bug fixes
3630
3631The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3632fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3633by the compiler.
3634
3635We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3636support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3637
3638John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3639slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3640that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3641purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3642the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3643mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3644
3645Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3646about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3647completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3648we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3649
3650 * AMD 29k support
3651
3652A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3653specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3654calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3655usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3656in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3657
3658We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3659Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3660of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3661resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3662
3663 * Remote interfaces
3664
3665We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3666with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3667message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3668This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3669needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3670breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3671each instruction being stepped through.
3672
3673The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3674registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3675
3676There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3677find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3678Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3679processor with a serial port.
3680
3681 * Configuration
3682
3683Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3684`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3685supported, and what files each one uses.
3686
3687 * Library changes
3688
3689There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3690disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3691Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3692disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3693
3694The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3695Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3696can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3697grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3698
3699 * Documentation
3700
3701The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3702reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3703as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3704encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3705system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3706bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3707
3708And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3709
3710
3711*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3712
3713 * Better support for C++ function names
3714
3715GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3716names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3717(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3718single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3719Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3720
3721GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3722the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3723You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3724lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3725for the list of formats.
3726
3727 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3728
3729Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3730C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3731directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3732can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3733usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3734about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3735this problem.)
3736
3737 * New 'maintenance' command
3738
3739All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3740the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3741can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3742
3743 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3744 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3745 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3746 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3747 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3748 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3749
3750The following commands are new:
3751
3752 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3753 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3754 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3755
3756 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3757
3758We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3759(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3760be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3761read after argv processing.
3762
3763 * New hosts supported
3764
3765Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3766
55241689 3767GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3768
3769We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3770is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3771for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3772masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3773fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3774It costs extra.
3775
3776 * New targets supported
3777
3778Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3779
3780 * More smarts about finding #include files
3781
3782GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3783all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3784greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3785especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3786the one that contains your sources.
3787
3788We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3789breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3790try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3791
3792 * Interesting infernals change
3793
3794GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3795section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3796target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3797stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3798
3799 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3800
3801There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3802 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3803 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3804
3805See the ChangeLog for details.
3806
3807*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3808
3809 * New machines supported (host and target)
3810
3811IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3812
3813SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3814
3815 * New malloc package
3816
3817GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3818Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3819capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3820This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3821pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3822more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3823
3824 * info proc
3825
3826The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3827'help info proc' for details.
3828
3829 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3830
3831The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3832Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3833possible.
3834
3835 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3836
3837Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3838support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3839conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3840environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3841that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3842in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3843
3844 * Cross byte order fixes
3845
3846Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3847targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3848
3849 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3850
3851If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3852system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3853`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3854program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3855called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3856Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3857and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3858the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3859option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3860starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3861
3862You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3863the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3864information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3865slower, but makes future operations faster.
3866
3867The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3868build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3869A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3870use is:
3871
3872 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3873
3874The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3875It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3876shared across multiple host platforms.
3877
3878 * longjmp() handling
3879
3880GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3881siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3882all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3883platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3884
3885 * Solaris 2.0
3886
3887Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3888this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3889reading symbols.
3890
3891 * Bug fixes
3892
3893As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3894People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3895crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3896
3897*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3898
3899 * New machines supported (host and target)
3900
3901SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3902 (except core files)
3903BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3904Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3905
3906 * New machines supported (target)
3907
3908AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3909
3910 * C++ support
3911
3912GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3913The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3914per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3915
3916GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3917`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3918extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3919good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3920will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3921released.
3922
3923 * New features for SVR4
3924
3925GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3926shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3927only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3928
3929The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3930on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3931it prints the address mappings of the process.
3932
3933If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3934bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3935
3936 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3937
3938Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3939now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3940skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3941make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3942same code linked statically.
3943
3944 * New Getopt
3945
3946GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3947version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3948continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3949Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3950added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3951future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3952
3953 * Bugs fixed
3954
3955The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3956Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3957See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3958
3959
3960*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3961
3962 * New machines supported (host and target)
3963
3964Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3965NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3966Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3967
3968 * Almost SCO Unix support
3969
3970We had hoped to support:
3971SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3972(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3973that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3974about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3975
3976 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3977
3978GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3979debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3980is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3981send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3982reqired (if any).
3983
3984 * New Readline
3985
3986GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3987is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3988required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3989
3990 * Bugs fixed
3991
3992The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3993Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3994See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3995
3996 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3997
3998GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3999supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4000symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4001
4002Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4003mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4004debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4005mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4006version 2.
4007
4008Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4009really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4010line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4011variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4012situation somewhat.
4013
4014When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4015However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4016methods.
4017
4018We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4019DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4020encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4021
4022
4023*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4024
4025 * Improved configuration
4026
4027Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4028Porting BFD is simpler.
4029
4030 * Stepping improved
4031
4032The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4033of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4034in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4035function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4036
4037 * Bug fixing
4038
4039Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4040
4041 * New host supported (not target)
4042
4043Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4044
4045
4046*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4047
4048 * Multiple source language support
4049
4050GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4051It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4052and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4053language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4054You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4055`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4056
4057 * GDB and Modula-2
4058
4059GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4060currently under development at the State University of New York at
4061Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4062continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4063
4064Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4065debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4066symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4067
4068There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4069in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4070
4071 * set write on/off
4072
4073GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4074a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4075the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4076by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4077effect immediately.
4078
4079 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4080
4081When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4082shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4083The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4084examining core files.
4085
4086 * set listsize
4087
4088You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4089The default is 10.
4090
4091 * New machines supported (host and target)
4092
4093SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4094Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4095Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4096
4097 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4098
4099IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4100
4101 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4102
4103AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4104AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4105Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4106
4107 * New remote interfaces
4108
4109AMD 29000 Adapt
4110AMD 29000 Minimon
4111
4112
4113*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4114
4115 * New Facilities
4116
4117Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4118
4119Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4120target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4121is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4122remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4123remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4124also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4125using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4126stub on the target system.
4127
4128New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4129
4130GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4131library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4132object file types such as a.out and coff.
4133
4134There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4135refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4136
4137
4138 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4139
4140All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4141by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4142
4143For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4144``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4145Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4146
4147What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4148print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4149will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4150all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4151
4152confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4153 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4154 it is already running. Default is ON.
4155
4156editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4157 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4158 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4159 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4160 Default is ON.
4161
4162history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4163 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4164 or the value of the environment variable
4165 GDBHISTFILE.
4166
4167history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4168 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4169 HISTSIZE.
4170
4171history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4172 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4173 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4174
4175history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4176 history expansion will be performed on
4177 command line input. The default is OFF.
4178
4179radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4180 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4181 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4182
4183height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4184 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4185 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4186 variable TERM.
4187
4188width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4189 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4190 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4191 variable TERM.
4192
4193Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4194``set width'' instead.
4195
4196print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4197 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4198 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4199 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4200
4201print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4202 is OFF.
4203
4204print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4205 "raw" form if off.
4206
4207print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4208 like instructions.
4209
4210print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4211
4212
4213 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4214
4215The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4216new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4217are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4218window.
4219
4220
4221 * Support for Shared Libraries
4222
4223GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4224Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4225before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4226happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4227At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4228from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4229shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4230It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4231
4232sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4233 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4234 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4235
4236info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4237
4238
4239 * Watchpoints
4240
4241A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4242expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4243tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4244quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4245problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4246more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4247
4248watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4249
4250info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4251
4252delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4253disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4254enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4255
4256
4257 * C++ multiple inheritance
4258
4259When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4260for C++ programs.
4261
4262 * C++ exception handling
4263
4264Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4265ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4266the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4267handler's context).
4268
4269catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4270 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4271 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4272
4273info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4274 current stack frame.
4275
4276
4277 * Minor command changes
4278
4279The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4280command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4281is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4282
4283The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4284at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4285frames without printing.
4286
4287 * New directory command
4288
4289'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4290The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4291about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4292with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4293find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4294
4295 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4296
4297For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4298for more details.
4299
4300GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4301two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4302Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4303where the program that you are debugging will run.