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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* OpenCL C
7 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
8 has been integrated into GDB.
9
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10* Python scripting
11
12 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
13 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
14 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
15 that function like so:
16
17 result = some_value (10,20)
18
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19 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
20 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
21 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
22
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23 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
24 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
25 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
26 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
27 New function: register_pretty_printer.
28
29 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
30 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
31
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32* C++ Improvements:
33
34 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
35 instantiation. For example, if you have:
36
37 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
38
39 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
40 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
41 was added to GCC 4.5.
42
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43* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
44 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
45 execution to a label.
46
47* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
48 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
49 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
50 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
51
b56df873 52* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 53 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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54 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
55 of scope.
56
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57* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
58
59 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
60 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
61 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
62 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
63 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
64 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
65
66 (gdb) info threads
67 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
68
69 While now you see this:
70
71 (gdb) info threads
72 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
73
74 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
75 dumps.
76
77 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
78 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
79 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
80 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
81
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82* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
83
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84 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
85 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 86
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87* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
88 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
89 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
90 in the GDB user manual.
91
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92* Guile support was removed.
93
76b8507d 94*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 95
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96* Shared library support for remote targets by default
97
98 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
99 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
100 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
101 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
102 was always disabled for such configurations.
103
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104* C++ Improvements:
105
106 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
107
108 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
109 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
110 For example:
111 namespace A
112 {
113 class B { };
114 void foo (B) { }
115 }
116 ...
117 A::B b
118 foo(b)
119 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
120 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
121 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
122
123 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
124
125 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
126 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
127 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
128 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
129 entry.
130 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
131 mentioned flavors of operators.
132
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133 ** static const class members
134
135 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
136 class definition has been fixed.
137
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138* Windows Thread Information Block access.
139
140 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
141 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
142 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
143 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
144 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
145 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
146
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147* Static tracepoints
148
149 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
150 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
151 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
152 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
153 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
154 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
155 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
156 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
157 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
158 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
159 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
160 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
161 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
162 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
163 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
164 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
165 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
166 the "New remote packets" section below.
167
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168* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
169
170 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
171 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
172 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
173 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
174
175* Observer mode
176
177 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
178 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
179 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
180 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
181 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
182 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
183 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
184
185* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
186 current thread.
187
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188* New remote packets
189
190qGetTIBAddr
191
192 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
193
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194qRelocInsn
195
196 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
197 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
198 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
199 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
200 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
201 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
202
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203qTfSTM, qTsSTM
204
205 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
206
207qTSTMat
208
209 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
210 program.
211
212qXfer:statictrace:read
213
214 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
215 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
216 to gdb's qSupported query.
217
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218QAllow
219
220 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
221
222QTDPsrc
223
224 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
225 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
226
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227* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
228 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
229 a directory.
230
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231* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
232
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233 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
234 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
235 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
236 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
237
238 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
239 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
240 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
241 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
242 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
243 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
244 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
245
246 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
247 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 248
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249 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
250
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251* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
252 it understands register description.
253
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254* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
255
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256* X86 general purpose registers
257
258 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
259 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
260 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
261 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
262 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
263
95a42b64 264* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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265 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
266 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
267 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
268 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
269 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 270
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271* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
272 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
273 in the specified file.
274
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275* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
276 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
277 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
278 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
279 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
280 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
281 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
282 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
283 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
284 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
285
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286* New commands
287
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288eval template, expressions...
289 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
290 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
291
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292set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
293show target-file-system-kind
294 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
295 names.
296
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297save breakpoints <filename>
298 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
299 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
300 definitions, use the `source' command.
301
302`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
303is now deprecated.
304
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305info static-tracepoint-markers
306 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
307
308strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
309 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
310 function, line, address, or marker ID.
311
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312set observer on|off
313show observer
314 Enable and disable observer mode.
315
316set may-write-registers on|off
317set may-write-memory on|off
318set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
319set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
320set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
321set may-interrupt on|off
322 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
323 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
324 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
325 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
326 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
327 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
328 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
329
330set record memory-query on|off
331show record memory-query
332 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
333 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
334
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335* Changed commands
336
337disassemble
338 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
339
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340* Python scripting
341
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342** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
343 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
344 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
345 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
346 GDB using Python' in the manual.
347
adc36818 348** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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349 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
350 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
351 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 352
fa33c3cd 353** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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354 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
355
356** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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357
358** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 359
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360** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
361
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362** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
363 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
364 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
365
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366* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
367there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
368tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
369regular breakpoints.
370
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371* New targets
372
373ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
374
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375* D language support.
376 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
377 language.
378
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379* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
380 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
381 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
382 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
383 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
384
385* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
386 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
387 conditions of the form:
388
389 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
390
391 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
392 interface mentioned above.
393
bfbf3774 394*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 395
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396* C++ Improvements
397
398 ** Namespace Support
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399
400 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
401 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
402 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
403 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
404 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
405
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406 ** Bug Fixes
407
408 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
409 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
410 qualified name.
411
412 ** Cast Operators
413
414 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
415 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
416
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417* New targets
418
419Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 420Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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421
422* New Simulators
423
424Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 425Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 426
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427* Multi-program debugging.
428
429 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
430 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
431 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
432 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
433 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
434 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
435 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
436 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
437
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438* New tracing features
439
440 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
441
442 ** Trace state variables
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443
444 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
445 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
446 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
447 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
448 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
449 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
450 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
451 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
452 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
453 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 454
d5551862 455 ** Fast tracepoints
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456
457 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
458 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
459 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
460 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
461 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
462 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
463 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
464 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
465 the regular trace command.
466
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467 ** Disconnected tracing
468
469 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
470 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
471 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
472 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
473 connection is lost unexpectedly.
474
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475 ** Trace files
476
477 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
478 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
479 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
480 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
481 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
482 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
483 <name>".
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484
485 ** Circular trace buffer
486
487 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
488 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
489 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
490 not be available for all target agents.
491
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492* Changed commands
493
494disassemble
495 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
496 the arguments to be comma-separated.
497
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498info variables
499 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
500 which only declare a variable are not shown.
501
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502source
503 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
504 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
505 support.
506
507 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
508 "set script-extension" (see below).
509
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510* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
511
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512record save [<FILENAME>]
513 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
514 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
515
516record restore <FILENAME>
517 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
518 earlier time, for replay debugging.
519
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520add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
521 Add a new inferior.
522
523clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
524 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
525 inferior has loaded.
526
527remove-inferior ID
528 Remove an inferior.
529
530maint info program-spaces
531 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
532
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533set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
534show remote interrupt-sequence
535 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
536 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
537 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
538 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
539 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
540
541set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
542show remote interrupt-on-connect
543 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
544 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
545 Linux kernel.
546
547set remotebreak [on | off]
548show remotebreak
549Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
550
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551tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
552 Create or modify a trace state variable.
553
554info tvariables
555 List trace state variables and their values.
556
557delete tvariable $NAME ...
558 Delete one or more trace state variables.
559
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560teval EXPR, ...
561 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
562 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
563
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564ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
565 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
566
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567* New expression syntax
568
569 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
570 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
571
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572* New options
573
574set follow-exec-mode new|same
575show follow-exec-mode
576 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
577 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
578 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
579
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580set default-collect EXPR, ...
581show default-collect
582 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
583 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
584 such as registers or a critical global variable.
585
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586set disconnected-tracing
587show disconnected-tracing
588 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
589 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
590 upon disconnection.
591
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592set circular-trace-buffer
593show circular-trace-buffer
594 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
595 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
596 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
597 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
598
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599set script-extension off|soft|strict
600show script-extension
601 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
602 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
603 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
604 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
605 evaluation failed.
606 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
607
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608set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
609show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
610 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
611 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
612 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
613 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
614 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
615 is on.
616
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617* Python API Improvements
618
619 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
620 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
621 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
622
623 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
624 `is_base_class' attribute.
625
626 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
627
628 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
629 evaluate an expression.
630
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631* New remote packets
632
633QTDV
634 Define a trace state variable.
635
636qTV
637 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
638
d5551862
SS
639QTDisconnected
640 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
641
4daf5ac0
SS
642QTBuffer:circular
643 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
644
d5551862
SS
645qTfP, qTsP
646 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
647
2d483d34
MS
648* Bug fixes
649
650Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
651
6e0e5977
JB
652Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
653much more reliable. In particular:
654 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
655 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
656 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
657 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
658 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
659 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
660 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
661 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
662 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
663 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
664 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
665 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
666 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
667 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
668 non-threaded programs.
669
93c26624
JK
670PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
671This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
672libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
673executable program.
674
abc7453d 675*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 676
4efc6507
DE
677* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
678dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
679them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
680for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
681"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
682
782b2b07
SS
683* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
684breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
685or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
686the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
687for tracepoint actions.
688
53a71c06
CR
689* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
690raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
691modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 692
e7a8dbfb
HZ
693* Process record and replay
694
695 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
696 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
697 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
698 execute commands.
699
64644d9b
MS
700* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
701step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
702set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
703reverse execution.
704
b9412953
DD
705* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
706feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
7072.6.28 or later.
708
6c7a06a3
TT
709* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
710target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
711char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
712literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
713U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
714`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
715system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
716the installation instructions for more information.
717
f1838a98
UW
718* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
719remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
720with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
721the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
722
55333a84
DE
723* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
724and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
725
7f6a6314
PM
726* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
727now complete on file names.
728
65d12d83
TT
729* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
730completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
731For instance, consider:
732
733 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
734 # struct example variable;
735 (gdb) p variable.
736
737If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
738completions will be "f1" and "f2".
739
edb3359d
DJ
740* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
741the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
742
2fae03e8
TT
743* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
744operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
745macros.
746
47a3467a 747* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
748the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
749implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
750
751* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
752registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
753can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
754and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 755
08388c79
DE
756* New remote packets
757
758qSearch:memory:
759 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
760
a6f3e723
SL
761QStartNoAckMode
762 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
763 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
764 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
765
d7713ae0
EZ
766vKill
767 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
768 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
769
07e059b5
VP
770qXfer:osdata:read
771 Obtains additional operating system information
772
47a3467a
PA
773qXfer:siginfo:read
774qXfer:siginfo:write
775 Read or write additional signal information.
776
060871df
PA
777* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
778
779 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
780 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
781 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
782
c055b101 783* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 784DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
785
786* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
787and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
788`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 789
31fffb02
CS
790* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
791with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
792
88d8a8e0
JB
793* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
794
7f99b190
JB
795* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
796
ccd213ac
DJ
797* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
798which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
799
1fddbabb 800* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 801list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 802
a0ef4274
DJ
803* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
804conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
805have also been fixed.
806
bfb8797a 807* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
808From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
809are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 810
71c25dea
TT
811* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
812example, given:
813
814 template<typename T> class C { };
815 C<char const *> c;
816
817GDB will now correctly handle all of:
818
819 ptype C<char const *>
820 ptype C<char const*>
821 ptype C<const char *>
822 ptype C<const char*>
823
ccd213ac
DJ
824* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
825
826 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
827 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
828
7ae0e2a2
UW
829 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
830 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
831 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
832
a6f3e723
SL
833 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
834 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
835
da8bd9a3
DJ
836 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
837 gdbserver.
838
d70e31dd
DE
839 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
840 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
841
842 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
843 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
844 as appropriate.
845
d57a3c85
TJB
846* Python scripting
847
848 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
849 available is determined at configure time.
850
d8906c6f
TJB
851 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
852
aadc346a
JB
853* Ada tasking support
854
855 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
856 been introduced:
857
858 info tasks
859 Print the list of Ada tasks.
860 info task N
861 Print detailed information about task number N.
862 task
863 Print the task number of the current task.
864 task N
865 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
866
adb483fe
DJ
867* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
868add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
869
2277426b
PA
870* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
871
872 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
873 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
874 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
875 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
876 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
877 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
878 below.
879
08d16641
PA
880* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
881"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
882information.
883
e35359c5
UW
884* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
885to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
886architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
887See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
888more information.
889
85e747d2
UW
890* Multi-architecture debugging.
891
892 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
893 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
894 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
895 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
896 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
897
898* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
899use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
900Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
901powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
902--enable-targets configure option.
903
11ade57a
PA
904* Non-stop mode debugging.
905
906 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
907 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
908 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
909 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
910 section in the user manual for more information.
911
912 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
913 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
914 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
915 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
916 extensions on linux targets.
917
d7713ae0 918* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 919
a96d9b2e
SDJ
920catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
921 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
922 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
923 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
924 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
925 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
926 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
927 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
928 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
929
08388c79
DE
930find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
931 val1 [, val2, ...]
932 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
933
d57a3c85
TJB
934maint set python print-stack
935maint show python print-stack
936 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
937
938python [CODE]
939 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
940
d7713ae0
EZ
941macro define
942macro list
943macro undef
944 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
945 interactively.
946
947info os processes
948 Show operating system information about processes.
949
2277426b
PA
950info inferiors
951 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
952
953inferior NUM
954 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
955
956detach inferior NUM
957 Detach from inferior number NUM.
958
959kill inferior NUM
960 Kill inferior number NUM.
961
d7713ae0
EZ
962* New options
963
3285f3fe
UW
964set spu stop-on-load
965show spu stop-on-load
966 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
967
ff1a52c6
UW
968set spu auto-flush-cache
969show spu auto-flush-cache
970 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
971 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
972
d7713ae0
EZ
973set sh calling-convention
974show sh calling-convention
975 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
976
e0a3ce09 977set debug timestamp
75feb17d 978show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
979 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
980
981set disassemble-next-line
982show disassemble-next-line
983 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
984 the debuggee stops.
985
986set remote noack-packet
987show remote noack-packet
988 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
989 under "New remote packets."
990
991set remote query-attached-packet
992show remote query-attached-packet
993 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
994
995set remote read-siginfo-object
996show remote read-siginfo-object
997 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
998 packet.
999
1000set remote write-siginfo-object
1001show remote write-siginfo-object
1002 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1003 packet.
1004
40ab02ce
MS
1005set remote reverse-continue
1006show remote reverse-continue
1007 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1008
1009set remote reverse-step
1010show remote reverse-step
1011 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1012
d7713ae0
EZ
1013set displaced-stepping
1014show displaced-stepping
1015 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1016 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1017 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1018
1019set debug displaced
1020show debug displaced
1021 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1022
1023maint set internal-error
1024maint show internal-error
1025 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1026
1027maint set internal-warning
1028maint show internal-warning
1029 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1030
ccd213ac
DJ
1031set exec-wrapper
1032show exec-wrapper
1033unset exec-wrapper
1034 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1035
aad4b048
JB
1036set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1037show multiple-symbols
1038 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1039 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1040 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1041
74960c60
VP
1042set breakpoint always-inserted
1043show breakpoint always-inserted
1044 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1045 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1046 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1047
0428b8f5
DJ
1048set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1049show arm fallback-mode
1050set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1051show arm force-mode
1052 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1053 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1054 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1055 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1056
10568435
JK
1057set disable-randomization
1058show disable-randomization
1059 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1060 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1061 multiple debugging sessions.
1062
d7713ae0
EZ
1063set non-stop
1064show non-stop
1065 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1066 a breakpoint.
1067
b3eb342c 1068set target-async
d7713ae0 1069show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1070 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1071 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1072 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1073 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1074
6c7a06a3
TT
1075set target-wide-charset
1076show target-wide-charset
1077 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1078 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1079
84603566
SL
1080set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1081show tcp auto-retry
1082set tcp connect-timeout
1083show tcp connect-timeout
1084 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1085 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1086 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1087
17a37d48
PP
1088set libthread-db-search-path
1089show libthread-db-search-path
1090 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1091 libthread_db.
1092
d4db2f36
PA
1093set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1094show schedule-multiple
1095 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1096 the current process.
1097
4e5d721f
DE
1098set stack-cache
1099show stack-cache
1100 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1101 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1102 affecting correctness.
1103
910c5da8
JB
1104set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1105show interactive-mode
1106 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1107 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1108 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1109 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1110 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1111
2277426b
PA
1112* Removed commands
1113
1114info forks
1115 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1116 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1117 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1118 command.
1119
1120fork NUM
1121 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1122 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1123 alias for the `fork' command.
1124
1125process PID
1126 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1127 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1128 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1129
1130delete fork NUM
1131 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1132 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1133 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1134 fork' command.
1135
1136detach fork NUM
1137 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1138 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1139 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1140 fork' command.
1141
a80b95ba
TG
1142* New native configurations
1143
1144x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1145
b8bfd3ed
JB
1146x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1147
75a2d5e7
TT
1148* New targets
1149
c28c63d8 1150Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1151x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1152x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1153S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1154
6de3146c
PA
1155* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1156 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1157
d5cbbe6e
JB
1158* Removed commands
1159
1160catch load
1161catch unload
1162 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1163
75feb17d 1164*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1165
af5ca30d
NH
1166* New native configurations
1167
1168NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1169Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1170
1171* New targets
1172
1173NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1174Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1175
7a404eba
PA
1176* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1177
1178 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1179 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1180 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1181 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1182
430ebac9
PA
1183* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1184(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1185
fe6fbf8b 1186* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1187is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1188
1189* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1190including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1191and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1192
10665d76
JB
1193* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1194accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1195more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1196
7cc46491
DJ
1197* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1198
d71340b8
DJ
1199* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1200registers on PowerPC targets.
1201
523c4513
DJ
1202* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1203targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1204
a6b151f1
DJ
1205* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1206commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1207
2d717e4f
DJ
1208* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1209extended-remote mode.
1210
24a836bd 1211* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1212The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1213error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1214The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1215
d0c678e6
UW
1216* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1217building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1218target architectures.
1219
d64a946d
TJB
1220* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1221Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1222now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1223stored in two consecutive float registers.
1224
ee163bf5
VP
1225* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1226breakpoints now.
1227
b93b6ca7 1228* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1229Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1230include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1231 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1232 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1233 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1234 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1235 of an assignment
1236 - Improved command completion in Ada
1237 - Several bug fixes
1238
d001be7a
DJ
1239* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1240process.
1241
a6b151f1
DJ
1242* New commands
1243
6d53d0af
JB
1244set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1245show print frame-arguments
1246 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1247 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1248
a6b151f1
DJ
1249remote put
1250remote get
1251remote delete
1252 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1253
1254* New MI commands
1255
1256-target-file-put
1257-target-file-get
1258-target-file-delete
1259 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1260
1261* New remote packets
1262
1263vFile:open:
1264vFile:close:
1265vFile:pread:
1266vFile:pwrite:
1267vFile:unlink:
1268 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1269
2d717e4f
DJ
1270vAttach
1271 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1272 mode.
1273
1274vRun
1275 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1276
8d5f9c6f 1277*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1278
19d378fc
MS
1279* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1280bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1281Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1282
3a40aaa0
UW
1283* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1284symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1285-Bsymbolic linker option.
1286
a6ec25f2
BW
1287* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1288recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1289is not supported.
1290
6dd09645
JB
1291* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1292frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1293
c9bb8148
DJ
1294* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
129532-bit or 64-bit register values.
1296
0d5de010
DJ
1297* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1298
23181151
DJ
1299* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1300target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1301a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1302
ea37ba09
DJ
1303* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1304automatically displayed as character or string data.
1305
1306* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1307arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1308as strings.
e1f48ead 1309
123dc839
DJ
1310* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1311for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1312only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1313
05a4558a
DJ
1314* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1315iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1316
7c963485
PA
1317* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1318ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1319has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1320
b18be20d
DJ
1321* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1322
0ca420ce
UW
1323* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1324
31d99776
DJ
1325* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1326layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1327segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1328
a4642986
MR
1329* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1330immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1331
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1332* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1333"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1334packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1335where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1336Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1337
1338* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1339(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1340
1341* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1342according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1343
c9bb8148
DJ
1344* New commands
1345
23776285
MR
1346set remoteflow
1347show remoteflow
1348 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1349 when debugging using remote targets.
1350
c9bb8148
DJ
1351set mem inaccessible-by-default
1352show mem inaccessible-by-default
1353 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1354 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1355 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1356 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1357 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1358
1359set breakpoint auto-hw
1360show breakpoint auto-hw
1361 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1362 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1363 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1364 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1365 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1366 including "next" and "finish".
1367
0e420bd8
JB
1368catch exception
1369catch exception unhandled
1370 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1371
1372catch assert
1373 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1374
f822c95b
DJ
1375set sysroot
1376show sysroot
1377 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1378 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1379 an alias to "set sysroot".
1380
83cc5c53
UW
1381info spu
1382 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1383 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1384 architecture.
1385
bd372731
MK
1386* New native configurations
1387
1388OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1389
23181151
DJ
1390set tdesc filename
1391unset tdesc filename
1392show tdesc filename
1393 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1394 not query the target for its built-in description.
1395
c9bb8148
DJ
1396* New targets
1397
54fe9172 1398OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1399MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1400Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1401
6dd09645
JB
1402* New remote packets
1403
1404QPassSignals:
1405 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1406 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1407
23181151
DJ
1408qXfer:features:read:
1409 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1410 features.
6dd09645 1411
83cc5c53
UW
1412qXfer:spu:read:
1413qXfer:spu:write:
1414 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1415 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1416
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1417qXfer:libraries:read:
1418 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1419 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1420 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1421 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1422
483367ee
DJ
1423* Removed targets
1424
1425Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1426
d08950c4
UW
1427alpha*-*-osf1*
1428alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1429d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1430hppa*-*-hiux*
1431i[34567]86-ncr-*
1432i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1433i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1434i[34567]86-*-netware*
1435i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1436i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1437i[34567]86-*-sco*
1438i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1439i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1440i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1441i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1442i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1443i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1444i[34567]86-*-isc*
1445m68*-cisco*-*
1446m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1447mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1448rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1449sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1450
7ce59000
DJ
1451* Other removed features
1452
1453target abug
1454target cpu32bug
1455target est
1456target rom68k
1457
1458 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1459
ea35711c
DJ
1460target hms
1461target e7000
1462target sh3
1463target sh3e
1464
1465 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1466 H8/300.
1467
1468target ocd
1469
1470 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1471 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1472 interfaces.
1473
7ce59000
DJ
1474DWARF 1 support
1475
1476 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1477 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1478
54d61198
DJ
1479Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1480
1481 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1482 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1483 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1484 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1485
ea35711c
DJ
1486MIPS ".pdr" sections
1487
1488 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1489 in debugging information.
1490
1491Scheme support
1492
1493 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1494 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1495
1a69e1e4
DJ
1496set mips stack-arg-size
1497set mips saved-gpreg-size
1498
1499 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1500
6dd09645 1501*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1502
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1503* New targets
1504
1505Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1506Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1507
6aec2e11
DJ
1508* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1509(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1510running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1511
1512* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1513Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1514supported.
1515
17218d91
DJ
1516* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1517broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1518
9ebce043
DJ
1519* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1520stub provides the required support.
1521
7d3d3ece
DJ
1522* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1523longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1524
4f8253f3
JB
1525* New commands
1526
1527set substitute-path
1528unset substitute-path
1529show substitute-path
1530 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1531 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1532 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1533 between compilation and debugging.
1534
9fa66fd7
AS
1535set trace-commands
1536show trace-commands
1537 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1538 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1539 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1540
1f5befc1
DJ
1541* REMOVED features
1542
1543The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1544
2ec3381a
DJ
1545Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1546an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1547
3d00d119
DJ
1548The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1549
be2a5f71
DJ
1550* New remote packets
1551
1552qSupported:
1553 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1554 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1555 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1556 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1557 target.
1558
0876f84a
DJ
1559qXfer:auxv:read:
1560 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1561 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1562
9ebce043
DJ
1563qXfer:memory-map:read:
1564 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1565 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1566
1567vFlashErase:
1568vFlashWrite:
1569vFlashDone:
1570 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1571
0876f84a
DJ
1572* Removed remote packets
1573
1574qPart:auxv:read:
1575 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1576 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1577
e374b601 1578*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1579
96309189
MS
1580* New targets
1581
1582Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1583
1584Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1585
53e5f3cf
AS
1586* New commands
1587
1588init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1589 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1590
ac264b3b
MS
1591The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1592
1593checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1594
1595restart <n> Return the program state to a
1596 previously saved state.
1597
1598info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1599
1600delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1601
1602set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1603 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1604
1605info forks List forks of the user program that
1606 are available to be debugged.
1607
1608fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1609 forks of the user program that are
1610 available to be debugged.
1611
1612delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1613 that are available to be debugged (and
1614 kill the forked process).
1615
1616detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1617 that are available to be debugged (and
1618 allow the process to continue).
1619
3950dc3f
NS
1620* New architecture
1621
1622Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1623
0ea3f30e
DJ
1624* Improved Windows host support
1625
1626GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1627native console support, and remote communications using either
1628network sockets or serial ports.
1629
f79daebb
GM
1630* Improved Modula-2 language support
1631
1632GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1633basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1634pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1635printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1636written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1637GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1638
acab6ab2
MM
1639* REMOVED features
1640
1641The ARM rdi-share module.
1642
f4267320
DJ
1643The Netware NLM debug server.
1644
53e5f3cf 1645*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1646
e0ecbda1
MK
1647* New native configurations
1648
02a677ac 1649OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1650OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1651
d64a6579
KB
1652* New targets
1653
1654Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1655
b33a6190
AS
1656* New command line options
1657
1658--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1659--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1660 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1661--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1662 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1663 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1664 with the --command (-x) option.
1665
11dced61
AC
1666* Deprecated commands removed
1667
1668The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1669removed:
1670
1671 Command Replacement
1672 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1673 othernames set arm disassembler
1674 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1675 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1676 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1677 regs info registers
1678
6fe85783
MK
1679* New BSD user-level threads support
1680
1681It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1682library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1683configurations are:
1684
1685FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1686FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1687OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1688
1689Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1690are not yet supported.
1691
5260ca71
MS
1692* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1693(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1694
e84ecc99
AC
1695* REMOVED configurations and files
1696
1697VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1698Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1699National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1700
31e35378
JB
1701* New "set print array-indexes" command
1702
1703After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1704when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1705behavior.
1706
e85e5c83
MK
1707* VAX floating point support
1708
1709GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1710
d91e9901
AS
1711* User-defined command support
1712
1713In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1714to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1715section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1716
f2cb65ca
MC
1717*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1718
f47b1503
AS
1719* New command line option
1720
1721GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1722debugging.
1723
f2cb65ca
MC
1724* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1725
1726GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1727information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1728by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1729proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1730to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1731
d08c0230
AC
1732* Internationalization
1733
1734When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1735internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1736continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1737
117ea3cf
PH
1738* Ada
1739
1740Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1741implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1742into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1743
d08c0230
AC
1744* New native configurations
1745
1746GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1747
1748* Remote 'p' packet
1749
1750GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1751packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1752
1753* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1754
1755GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1756The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1757features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1758i386 application).
1759
1760GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1761compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1762continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1763configurations:
1764
1765hppa-*-hpux
1766ia64-*-aix
1767mips-*-irix*
1768*-*-lynx
1769mips-*-linux-gnu
1770sds protocol
1771xdr protocol
1772powerpc bdm protocol
1773
1774Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1775made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1776
1777* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1778
1779Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1780been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1781configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1782permanently REMOVED.
1783
1784h8300-*-*
1785mcore-*-*
1786mn10300-*-*
1787ns32k-*-*
1788sh64-*-*
1789v850-*-*
1790
ebb7c577
AC
1791*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1792
1793* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1794
1795When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1796heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1797been fixed.
1798
1799* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1800
1801When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1802fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1803IRIX long double values).
1804
1805* VAX and "next"
1806
1807A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1808command. This problem has been fixed.
1809
860660cb 1810*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1811
0dea2468
AC
1812* Fix for ``many threads''
1813
1814On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1815rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1816error message:
1817
1818 ptrace: No such process.
1819 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1820
1821This problem has been fixed.
1822
2c07db7a
AC
1823* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1824
1825Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1826GDB to dump core).
1827
c23968a2
JB
1828* New ``start'' command.
1829
1830This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1831
71009278
MK
1832* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1833
1834Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1835live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1836platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1837
1838FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1839FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1840NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1841NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1842NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1843OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1844OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1845OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1846OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1847
3c0b7db2
AC
1848* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1849
1850Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1851These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1852of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1853call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1854signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1855
73cc75f3
AC
1856Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1857features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1858include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1859
7243600a
BF
1860* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1861
6f606e1c
MK
1862* New native configurations
1863
97dc871c 1864GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1865OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1866OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1867OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1868OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1869NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1870OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1871
a1b461bf
AC
1872* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1873
1874GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1875The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1876including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1877migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1878compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1879work, was also included.
1880
1881GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1882module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1883
1884h8300-*-*
1885mcore-*-*
1886mn10300-*-*
1887ns32k-*-*
1888sh64-*-*
1889v850-*-*
1890xstormy16-*-*
1891
1892Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1893made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1894
3c7012f5
AC
1895* REMOVED configurations and files
1896
1897Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1898Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1899Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1900Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1901Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1902AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1903Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1904decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1905riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1906sonymips mips-sony-*
1907sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1908
e5fe55f7
AC
1909*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1910
1911* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1912
1913The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1914GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1915command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1916program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1917with GDB".
1918
1919* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1920
1921Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1922libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1923cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1924GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1925shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1926the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1927are created.
1928
1929Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1930
1931* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1932
1933The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1934non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1935compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1936
1937* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1938
1939Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1940wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1941
1942* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1943
1944The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1945permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1946systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1947
1948* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1949
1950Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1951has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1952
1953* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1954
1955GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1956its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1957panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1958
1959* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1960
1961When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1962by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1963not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1964
faae5abe 1965*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1966
9175c9a3
MC
1967* Removed --with-mmalloc
1968
1969Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1970conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1971
3cc87ec0
MK
1972* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1973
1974The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1975the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1976and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1977you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1978
f0424ef6
MK
1979* Revised SPARC target
1980
1981The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1982FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1983support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1984from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1985(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1986
59659be2
ILT
1987* New C++ demangler
1988
1989GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1990names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1991with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1992programs.
1993
9e08b29b
DJ
1994* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1995
1996GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1997arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1998encountered these.
1999
8dfe8985
DC
2000* C++ nested types and namespaces
2001
2002GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2003improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2004is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2005Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2006namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2007"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2008frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2009if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2010GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2011
cced5e27
MK
2012* New native configurations
2013
2014NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2015OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2016OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2017OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2018OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2019
b4b4b794
KI
2020* New debugging protocols
2021
2022M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2023
7989c619
AC
2024* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2025
2026The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2027and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2028tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2029
5994185b
AC
2030* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2031
2032Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2033been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2034configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2035permanently REMOVED.
2036
2037Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2038Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2039Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2040Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2041Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2042AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2043Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2044decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2045riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2046sonymips mips-sony-*
2047sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2048
0ddabb4c
AC
2049* REMOVED configurations and files
2050
2051SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2052SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2053Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2054Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2055H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2056HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2057HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2058HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2059PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2060386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2061Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2062 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2063 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2064SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2065SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2066Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2067Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2068
c7f1390e
DJ
2069*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2070
1fe43d45
AC
2071* Objective-C
2072
2073Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2074integrated into GDB.
2075
e6beb428
AC
2076* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2077
2078DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2079information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2080By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2081backtraces.
2082
2083The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2084have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2085DWARF 2 CFI support.
2086
2087* Hosted file I/O.
2088
2089GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2090file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2091remote protocol documentation for details.
2092
2093* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2094
2095All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2096architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2097to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2098ppc32 on ppc64).
2099
2100* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2101
2102GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2103per-thread variables.
2104
2105* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2106
2107GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2108GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2109
2110* Separate debug info.
2111
2112GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2113automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2114of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2115system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2116and optional debug files.
2117
2118* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2119
2120DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2121describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2122debugger.
2123
2124GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2125for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2126
2127* Java
2128
2129A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2130Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2131considered "useable".
2132
85f8f974
DJ
2133* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2134
2135The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2136commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2137kernel.
2138
0fac0b41
DJ
2139* GDB supports logging output to a file
2140
2141There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2142used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2143
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2144* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2145
2146The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2147disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2148command.
2149
e286caf2 2150* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2151
2152The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2153registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2154
d28f9cdf
DJ
2155* Profiling support
2156
2157A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2158be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2159session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2160"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2161data, for more informative profiling results.
2162
da0f9dcd
AC
2163* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2164
2165The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2166option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2167"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2168
2169Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2170removed.
2171
fb9b6b35
JJ
2172Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2173Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2174Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2175 in a subsequent -var-update.
2176
954a4db8
MK
2177* New native configurations.
2178
2179FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2180
6760f9e6
JB
2181* Multi-arched targets.
2182
b4263afa 2183HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2184Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2185
1b831c93
AC
2186* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2187
2188Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2189been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2190configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2191permanently REMOVED.
2192
8b0e5691 2193Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2194Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2195H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2196HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2197HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2198HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2199PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2200Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2201 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2202 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2203Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2204Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2205
5835abe7
NC
2206* REMOVED configurations and files
2207
2208V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2209Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2210IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2211i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2212i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2213i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2214HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2215 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2216 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2217Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2218Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2219Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2220OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2221I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2222
a094c6fb
AC
2223* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2224
2225The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2226the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2227context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2228address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2229The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2230
299ffc64 2231*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2232
46248966
AC
2233* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2234
2235When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2236`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2237in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2238library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2239shared libs like mad''.
2240
b9d14705 2241* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2242
b9d14705
DJ
2243Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2244the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2245arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2246powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2247
e0e9281e
JB
2248* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2249
2250GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2251and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2252they expand.
2253
dd73b9bb
AC
2254The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2255invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2256
2257The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2258macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2259
e0e9281e
JB
2260Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2261information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2262your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2263information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2264
2250ee0c
CV
2265* Multi-arched targets.
2266
6e3ba3b8
JT
2267DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2268DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2269NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2270National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2271Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2272Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2273
cd9bfe15 2274* New targets.
e33ce519 2275
456f8b9d
DB
2276Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2277
e33ce519 2278
da8ca43d
JT
2279* New native configurations
2280
2281Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2282SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2283MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2284UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2285
cd9bfe15
AC
2286* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2287
2288Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2289been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2290configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2291permanently REMOVED.
2292
92eb23c5 2293Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2294OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2295IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2296Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2297Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2298Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2299i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2300i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2301i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2302HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2303 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2304 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2305I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2306
db034ac5
AC
2307* OBSOLETE languages
2308
2309CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2310
cd9bfe15
AC
2311* REMOVED configurations and files
2312
2313AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2314A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2315AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2316AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2317AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2318
2319testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2320
20f01a46
DH
2321* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2322
2323This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2324commands. The default is 1024.
2325
a5941fbf
MK
2326* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2327
2328Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2329
89743e04
MS
2330* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2331
2332These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2333to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2334from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2335
9fb14e79
JB
2336* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2337
2338The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2339including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2340of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2341
2037aebb
AC
2342*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2343
2344* New targets.
2345
2346Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2347
2348* Bug fixes
2349
2350gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2351mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2352Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2353
2354gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2355dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2356Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2357
2358Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2359Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2360By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2361
2362i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2363avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2364By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2365
37057839 2366*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2367
1a703748
MS
2368* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2369
2370This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2371really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2372In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2373target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2374This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2375(notably embedded) targets.
2376
cefd4ef5
MS
2377* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2378
55241689
AC
2379This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2380process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2381GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2382hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2383
352ed7b4
MS
2384* New command line option
2385
2386GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2387
2388* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2389
2390There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2391command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2392a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2393be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2394open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2395issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2396a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2397it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2398GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2399is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2400
fe419ffc
RE
2401* Changes in ARM configurations.
2402
2403Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2404configuration is fully multi-arch.
2405
eb7cedd9
MK
2406* New native configurations
2407
fe419ffc 2408ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2409x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2410AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2411Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2412
c9f63e6b
CV
2413* New targets
2414
2415Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2416
9b4ff276
AC
2417* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2418
2419Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2420been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2421configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2422permanently REMOVED.
2423
2424AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2425A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2426AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2427AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2428AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2429
b4ceaee6 2430testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2431
e2caac18
AC
2432* REMOVED configurations and files
2433
2434TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2435WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2436PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2437PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2438PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2439Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2440Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2441 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2442SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2443Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2444Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2445ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2446Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2447
c2a727fa
TT
2448* Changes to command line processing
2449
2450The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2451for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2452
467d8519
TT
2453* Changes to key bindings
2454
2455There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2456
7072a954
AC
2457*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2458
2459Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2460
2461Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2462corrupted.
2463
2464Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2465
2466Numerous documentation fixes.
2467
2468Numerous testsuite fixes.
2469
34f47bc4 2470*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2471
2472* New native configurations
2473
2474Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2475x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2476MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2477MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2478ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2479s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2480
bf64bfd6
AC
2481* New targets
2482
def90278 2483Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2484CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2485UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2486
17e78a56 2487* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2488
2489x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2490Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2491Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2492 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2493TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2494WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2495Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2496PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2497PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2498PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2499SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2500Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2501ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2502Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2503
17e78a56
AC
2504stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2505kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2506
7fcca85b
AC
2507Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2508been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2509configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2510permanently REMOVED.
2511
a196c81c 2512* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2513
2514Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2515Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2516Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2517ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2518Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2519ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2520
6d6b80e5 2521* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2522
6d6b80e5 2523GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2524sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2525present.
2526
bf64bfd6
AC
2527* Other news:
2528
e23194cb
EZ
2529* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2530
2531* The MI enabled by default.
2532
2533The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2534revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2535engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2536using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2537which is now deprecated.
2538
2539* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2540
2541GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2542main features are supported:
2543
2544 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2545
2546 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2547 extension;
2548
2549 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2550
2551 - a Pascal expression parser.
2552
2553However, some important features are not yet supported.
2554
2555 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2556
2557 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2558
2559 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2560 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2561
2562 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2563
2564 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2565
2566* Changes in completion.
2567
2568Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2569to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2570users expect at the shell prompt.
2571
2572Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2573`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2574program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2575files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2576be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2577considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2578name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2579
2580`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2581
2582* New platform-independent commands:
2583
2584It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2585hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2586documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2587
2588* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2589
d7275149
MK
2590Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2591revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2592many threads as your system allows you to have.
2593
e23194cb
EZ
2594Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2595
d7275149
MK
2596Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2597multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2598
2599* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2600
2601Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2602
e23194cb
EZ
2603GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2604debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2605supported.)
2606
2607* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2608
2609Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2610breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2611implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2612put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2613and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2614registers.
2615
2616The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2617debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2618watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2619
2620* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2621
2622New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2623the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2624
2625New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2626display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2627IDT.
2628
2629New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2630from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2631New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2632a given linear address.
2633
2634GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2635program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2636which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2637
2638DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2639
6c56c069
EZ
2640It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2641
e23194cb
EZ
2642* Changes in documentation.
2643
2644All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2645Documentation License.
2646
2647Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2648manual.
2649
2650TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2651
2652Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2653manual.
2654
2655The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2656documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2657hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2658
5d6640b1
AC
2659* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2660
2661The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2662``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2663contents of this file.
2664
1a1d8446
AC
2665* gdba.el deleted
2666
2667GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2668
9debab2f 2669*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2670
c63ce875
EZ
2671* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2672
2673Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2674programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2675displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2676greater level of detail.
2677
2678* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2679
2680It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2681bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2682on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2683written.
2684
2685* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2686
2687The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2688necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2689machines ``out of the box''.
2690
2691The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2692possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2693signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2694would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2695interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2696
2697It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2698standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2699even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2700and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2701terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2702
2703The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2704enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2705also works.
2706
2707DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2708GDB.
2709
2710It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2711directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2712times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2713breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2714
ed9a39eb
JM
2715* New native configurations
2716
2717ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2718PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2719
7a292a7a
SS
2720* New targets
2721
96baa820 2722Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2723x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2724PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2725TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2726
085dd6e6
JM
2727* OBSOLETE configurations
2728
2729Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2730Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2731Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2732ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2733Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2734
9debab2f
AC
2735Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2736but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2737these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2738be permanently REMOVED.
2739
5330533d
SS
2740* Gould support removed
2741
2742Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2743
bc9e5bbf
AC
2744* New features for SVR4
2745
2746On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2747without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2748load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2749
2750* Many C++ enhancements
2751
2752C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2753in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2754
adf40b2e
JM
2755* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2756
2757A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2758sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2759with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2760``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2761
2762 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2763 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2764
43e526b9
JM
2765* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2766
2767A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2768expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2769instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2770
2771The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2772added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2773
96baa820
JM
2774* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2775
2776The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2777``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2778include ``set remote P-packet''.
2779
11cf8741
JM
2780* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2781
2782The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2783accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2784``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2785
7876dd43
DB
2786* ``apropos'' command added.
2787
2788The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2789documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2790try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2791
bc9e5bbf
AC
2792* New MI interface
2793
2794A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2795interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2796process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2797"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2798enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2799
2800 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2801
c906108c
SS
2802*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2803
2804* New native configurations
2805
2806HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2807HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2808M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2809
2810* New targets
2811
2812Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2813Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2814Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2815
2816* OBSOLETE configurations
2817
2818Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2819
2820Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2821but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2822these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2823be permanently REMOVED.
2824
2825* ANSI/ISO C
2826
2827As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2828buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2829containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2830use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2831available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2832configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2833information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2834already.
2835
2836* Readline 2.2
2837
2838GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2839
2840* set extension-language
2841
2842You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2843languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2844you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2845 set extension-language .c c++
2846The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2847and their associated languages.
2848
2849* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2850
2851When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2852you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2853PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2854
2855 set processor NAME
2856
2857sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2858following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2859
2860 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2861 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2862 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2863 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2864 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2865 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2866 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2867 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2868 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2869 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2870 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2871
2872At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2873special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2874registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2875only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2876
2877* HP-UX support
2878
2879Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2880more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2881library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2882support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2883for xdb and dbx commands.
2884
2885* Catchpoints
2886
2887HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2888generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2889to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2890
2891This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2892argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2893output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2894
2895* Debugging across forks
2896
2897On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2898in the inferior.
2899
2900* TUI
2901
2902HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2903it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2904configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2905
2906* GDB remote protocol additions
2907
2908A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2909Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2910fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2911allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2912
2913For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2914full 64-bit address. The command
2915
2916 set remoteaddresssize 32
2917
2918can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2919the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2920will be discarded.
2921
2922In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2923command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2924
2925 maint packet heythere
2926
2927sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2928disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2929time.
2930
2931The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2932target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2933downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2934
2935* Tracing can collect general expressions
2936
2937You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2938further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2939doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2940
2941* mask-address variable for Mips
2942
2943For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2944a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2945of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2946
2947* Higher serial baud rates
2948
2949GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2950230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2951to achieve all of these rates.)
2952
2953* i960 simulator
2954
2955The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2956builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2957
2958
2959*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2960
2961* New native configurations
2962
2963Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2964Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2965Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2966PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2967PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2968Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2969Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2970
2971* New targets
2972
2973Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2974Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2975Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2976Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2977MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2978MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2979MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2980Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2981Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2982Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2983NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2984
2985* New debugging protocols
2986
2987ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2988M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2989DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2990PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2991PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2992Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2993
2994* DWARF 2
2995
2996All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2997format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2998information.
2999
3000* Java frontend
3001
3002GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3003only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3004
3005* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3006
3007For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3008loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3009locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3010
3011* Live range splitting
3012
3013GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3014range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3015more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3016
3017* Hurd support
3018
3019GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3020updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3021
3022* ARM Thumb support
3023
3024GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3025instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3026instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3027accordingly.
3028
3029* MIPS16 support
3030
3031GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3032instruction set.
3033
3034* Overlay support
3035
3036GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3037linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3038will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3039control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3040additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3041in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3042
3043* info symbol
3044
3045The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3046the symbol at the specified address.
3047
3048* Trace support
3049
3050The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3051asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3052extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3053includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3054file tracepoint.c for more details.
3055
3056* MIPS simulator
3057
3058Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3059by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3060of most MIPS variants.
3061
3062* Sparc simulator
3063
3064Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3065by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3066Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3067
3068* set architecture
3069
3070For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3071basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3072architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3073the possible architectures.
3074
3075*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3076
3077* New native configurations
3078
3079Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3080M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3081PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3082PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3083PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3084RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3085
3086* New targets
3087
3088ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3089I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3090MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3091MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3092PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3093Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3094Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3095
3096* PowerPC simulator
3097
3098The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3099contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3100PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3101basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3102performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3103
3104* Solaris 2.5
3105
3106GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3107
3108* Windows 95/NT native
3109
3110GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3111To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3112which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3113Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3114ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3115
3116* dont-repeat command
3117
3118If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3119command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3120useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3121extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3122
3123* Send break instead of ^C
3124
3125The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3126rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3127GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3128
3129* Remote protocol timeout
3130
3131The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3132that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3133to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3134
3135* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3136
3137By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3138loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3139stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3140when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3141in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3142
3143Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3144/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3145automatically on hpux10.
3146
3147* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3148
3149Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3150
3151* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3152
3153When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3154may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3155the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3156every character. The default value is 1050.
3157
3158* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3159
3160If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3161a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3162replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3163details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3164remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3165to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3166
3167* Speedups for remote debugging
3168
3169GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3170the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3171and more efficient S-record downloading.
3172
3173* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3174
3175GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3176Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3177
3178*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3179
3180* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3181
3182The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3183can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3184
3185* Remote targets use caching
3186
3187Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3188remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3189it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3190debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3191off' turns the the data cache off.
3192
3193* Remote targets may have threads
3194
3195The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3196in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3197gdb/remote.c for details.
3198
3199* NetROM support
3200
3201If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3202support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3203acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3204write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3205support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3206another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3207sequence is something like
3208
3209 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3210 load <prog>
3211 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3212
3213* Macintosh host
3214
3215GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3216may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3217it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3218available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3219device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3220directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3221scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3222mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3223
3224* Autoconf
3225
3226GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3227but does simplify configuration and building.
3228
3229* hpux10
3230
3231GDB now supports hpux10.
3232
3233*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3234
3235* New native configurations
3236
3237x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3238x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3239NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3240Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3241
3242* New targets
3243
3244A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3245HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3246CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3247PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3248WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3249
3250* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3251
3252GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3253possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3254filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3255the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3256if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3257
3258* Arguments to user-defined commands
3259
3260User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3261Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3262trivial example:
3263define adder
3264 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3265
3266To execute the command use:
3267adder 1 2 3
3268
3269Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3270Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3271use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3272
3273* New `if' and `while' commands
3274
3275This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3276commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3277expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3278execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3279terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3280`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3281if the expression is zero.
3282
3283* Fortran source language mode
3284
3285GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3286Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3287variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3288with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3289Fortran compilers.
3290
3291* Better HPUX support
3292
3293Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3294running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3295processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3296for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3297that behavior do the following before running the program:
3298
3299 adb -w a.out
3300 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3301 control-d
3302
3303This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3304To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3305
3306 adb -w a.out
3307 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3308 control-d
3309
3310You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3311the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3312external linkage.
3313
3314GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3315HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3316
3317* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3318
3319You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3320commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3321current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3322"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3323associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3324configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3325
3326* New DOS host serial code
3327
3328This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3329no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3330a PC's serial port.
3331
3332*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3333
3334* New "complete" command
3335
3336This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3337were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3338
3339* Trailing space optional in prompt
3340
3341"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3342allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3343
3344* Breakpoint hit counts
3345
3346"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3347has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3348can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3349to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3350less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3351that breakpoint.
3352
3353* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3354
3355"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3356an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3357arrays actually contain only short strings.
3358
3359* Shared library breakpoints
3360
3361In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3362breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3363
3364* Hardware watchpoints
3365
3366There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3367targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3368
55241689 3369Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3370
3371* Annotations
3372
3373Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3374and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3375
3376* Improved Irix 5 support
3377
3378GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3379
3380* Improved HPPA support
3381
3382GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3383
3384* New native configurations
3385
3386Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3387HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3388Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3389RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3390
3391* New targets
3392
3393OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3394MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3395Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3396
3397* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3398
3399There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3400This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3401
3402* Fixes
3403
3404As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3405and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3406
3407*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3408
3409* Irix 5 is now supported
3410
3411* HPPA support
3412
3413GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3414to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3415GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3416of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3417can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3418
3419
3420*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3421
3422* User visible changes:
3423
3424* Remote Debugging
3425
3426The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3427target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3428debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3429integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3430debugging info for the mips target).
3431
3432* DEC Alpha native support
3433
3434GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3435debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3436work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3437Alpha-specific notes.
3438
3439* Preliminary thread implementation
3440
3441GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3442
3443* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3444
3445This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3446to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3447for details).
3448
3449* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3450
3451This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3452mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3453call methods, ...etc.
3454
3455*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3456
3457 * User visible changes:
3458
3459Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3460supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3461other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3462somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3463
3464Filename completion now works.
3465
3466When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3467arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3468addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3469
3470All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3471vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3472should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3473your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3474to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3475
3476 * DEC alpha support
3477
3478This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3479cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3480
3481
3482*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3483
3484 * Testsuite
3485
3486This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3487The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3488via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3489
3490 * C++ demangling
3491
3492'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3493emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3494Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3495disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3496use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3497
3498 * Simulators
3499
3500GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3501So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3502Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3503
3504 * New targets supported
3505
3506H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3507H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3508SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3509Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3510IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3511
3512Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3513version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3514GO32 memory extender.
3515
3516 * New remote protocols
3517
3518MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3519
3520 * New source languages supported
3521
3522This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3523used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3524into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3525
3526
3527*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3528
3529 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3530
3531GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3532version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3533University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3534compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3535format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3536(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3537
3538Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3539
3540 * Faster and better demangling
3541
3542We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3543demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3544character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3545only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3546This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3547increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3548symbol lookups.
3549
3550`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3551from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3552compiler does not actually implement.
3553
3554 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3555
3556In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3557inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3558recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3559very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3560The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3561circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3562fix.
3563
3564The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3565release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3566
3567 * Improved configure script
3568
3569The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3570you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3571host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3572done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3573
3574We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3575version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3576`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3577The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3578only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3579We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3580
3581 * Documentation improvements
3582
3583There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3584produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3585before submitting changes.
3586
3587The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3588M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3589`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3590you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3591a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3592
3593*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3594We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3595been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3596or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3597`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3598around this problem.
3599
3600 * New features
3601
3602GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3603the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3604`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3605the target program.
3606
3607The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3608how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3609
3610 * New native hosts supported
3611
3612HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3613386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3614
3615 * New targets supported
3616
3617AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3618
3619 * New file formats supported
3620
3621BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3622HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3623
3624 * Major bug fixes
3625
3626Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3627
3628We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3629printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3630
3631We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3632for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3633release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3634
3635You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3636will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3637
3638We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3639for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3640especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3641libraries.
3642
3643The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3644information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3645command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3646any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3647when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3648
3649 * Internal improvements
3650
3651GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3652debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3653
3654GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3655Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3656symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3657contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3658shared code that handles any of them.
3659
3660 * New command line options
3661
3662We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3663
3664 * Mmalloc licensing
3665
3666The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3667General Public License.
3668
3669*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3670
3671 * Host/native/target split
3672
3673GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3674hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3675target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3676local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3677ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3678
3679The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3680GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3681is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3682code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3683any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3684built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3685handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3686
3687GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3688It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3689plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3690
3691 * New hosts supported
3692
3693HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3694386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3695386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3696
3697 * New targets supported
3698
3699Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
370068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3701
3702 * New native hosts supported
3703
3704386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3705 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3706386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3707
3708 * New file formats supported
3709
3710BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3711supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3712format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3713
3714 * New commands
3715
3716`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3717`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3718These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3719
3720`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3721
3722You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3723scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3724prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3725executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3726
3727 * C++ improvements
3728
3729We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3730info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3731symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3732
3733Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3734
3735 * Major bug fixes
3736
3737The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3738fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3739by the compiler.
3740
3741We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3742support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3743
3744John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3745slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3746that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3747purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3748the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3749mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3750
3751Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3752about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3753completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3754we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3755
3756 * AMD 29k support
3757
3758A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3759specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3760calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3761usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3762in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3763
3764We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3765Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3766of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3767resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3768
3769 * Remote interfaces
3770
3771We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3772with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3773message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3774This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3775needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3776breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3777each instruction being stepped through.
3778
3779The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3780registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3781
3782There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3783find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3784Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3785processor with a serial port.
3786
3787 * Configuration
3788
3789Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3790`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3791supported, and what files each one uses.
3792
3793 * Library changes
3794
3795There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3796disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3797Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3798disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3799
3800The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3801Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3802can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3803grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3804
3805 * Documentation
3806
3807The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3808reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3809as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3810encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3811system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3812bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3813
3814And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3815
3816
3817*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3818
3819 * Better support for C++ function names
3820
3821GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3822names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3823(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3824single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3825Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3826
3827GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3828the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3829You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3830lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3831for the list of formats.
3832
3833 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3834
3835Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3836C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3837directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3838can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3839usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3840about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3841this problem.)
3842
3843 * New 'maintenance' command
3844
3845All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3846the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3847can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3848
3849 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3850 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3851 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3852 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3853 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3854 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3855
3856The following commands are new:
3857
3858 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3859 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3860 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3861
3862 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3863
3864We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3865(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3866be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3867read after argv processing.
3868
3869 * New hosts supported
3870
3871Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3872
55241689 3873GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3874
3875We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3876is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3877for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3878masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3879fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3880It costs extra.
3881
3882 * New targets supported
3883
3884Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3885
3886 * More smarts about finding #include files
3887
3888GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3889all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3890greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3891especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3892the one that contains your sources.
3893
3894We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3895breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3896try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3897
3898 * Interesting infernals change
3899
3900GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3901section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3902target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3903stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3904
3905 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3906
3907There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3908 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3909 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3910
3911See the ChangeLog for details.
3912
3913*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3914
3915 * New machines supported (host and target)
3916
3917IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3918
3919SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3920
3921 * New malloc package
3922
3923GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3924Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3925capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3926This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3927pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3928more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3929
3930 * info proc
3931
3932The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3933'help info proc' for details.
3934
3935 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3936
3937The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3938Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3939possible.
3940
3941 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3942
3943Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3944support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3945conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3946environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3947that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3948in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3949
3950 * Cross byte order fixes
3951
3952Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3953targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3954
3955 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3956
3957If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3958system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3959`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3960program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3961called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3962Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3963and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3964the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3965option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3966starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3967
3968You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3969the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3970information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3971slower, but makes future operations faster.
3972
3973The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3974build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3975A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3976use is:
3977
3978 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3979
3980The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3981It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3982shared across multiple host platforms.
3983
3984 * longjmp() handling
3985
3986GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3987siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3988all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3989platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3990
3991 * Solaris 2.0
3992
3993Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3994this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3995reading symbols.
3996
3997 * Bug fixes
3998
3999As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4000People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4001crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4002
4003*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4004
4005 * New machines supported (host and target)
4006
4007SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4008 (except core files)
4009BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4010Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4011
4012 * New machines supported (target)
4013
4014AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4015
4016 * C++ support
4017
4018GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4019The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4020per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4021
4022GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4023`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4024extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4025good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4026will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4027released.
4028
4029 * New features for SVR4
4030
4031GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4032shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4033only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4034
4035The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4036on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4037it prints the address mappings of the process.
4038
4039If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4040bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4041
4042 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4043
4044Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4045now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4046skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4047make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4048same code linked statically.
4049
4050 * New Getopt
4051
4052GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4053version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4054continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4055Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4056added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4057future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4058
4059 * Bugs fixed
4060
4061The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4062Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4063See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4064
4065
4066*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4067
4068 * New machines supported (host and target)
4069
4070Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4071NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4072Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4073
4074 * Almost SCO Unix support
4075
4076We had hoped to support:
4077SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4078(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4079that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4080about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4081
4082 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4083
4084GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4085debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4086is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4087send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4088reqired (if any).
4089
4090 * New Readline
4091
4092GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4093is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4094required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4095
4096 * Bugs fixed
4097
4098The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4099Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4100See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4101
4102 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4103
4104GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4105supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4106symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4107
4108Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4109mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4110debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4111mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4112version 2.
4113
4114Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4115really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4116line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4117variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4118situation somewhat.
4119
4120When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4121However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4122methods.
4123
4124We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4125DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4126encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4127
4128
4129*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4130
4131 * Improved configuration
4132
4133Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4134Porting BFD is simpler.
4135
4136 * Stepping improved
4137
4138The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4139of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4140in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4141function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4142
4143 * Bug fixing
4144
4145Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4146
4147 * New host supported (not target)
4148
4149Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4150
4151
4152*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4153
4154 * Multiple source language support
4155
4156GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4157It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4158and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4159language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4160You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4161`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4162
4163 * GDB and Modula-2
4164
4165GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4166currently under development at the State University of New York at
4167Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4168continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4169
4170Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4171debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4172symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4173
4174There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4175in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4176
4177 * set write on/off
4178
4179GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4180a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4181the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4182by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4183effect immediately.
4184
4185 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4186
4187When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4188shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4189The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4190examining core files.
4191
4192 * set listsize
4193
4194You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4195The default is 10.
4196
4197 * New machines supported (host and target)
4198
4199SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4200Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4201Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4202
4203 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4204
4205IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4206
4207 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4208
4209AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4210AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4211Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4212
4213 * New remote interfaces
4214
4215AMD 29000 Adapt
4216AMD 29000 Minimon
4217
4218
4219*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4220
4221 * New Facilities
4222
4223Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4224
4225Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4226target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4227is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4228remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4229remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4230also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4231using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4232stub on the target system.
4233
4234New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4235
4236GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4237library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4238object file types such as a.out and coff.
4239
4240There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4241refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4242
4243
4244 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4245
4246All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4247by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4248
4249For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4250``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4251Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4252
4253What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4254print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4255will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4256all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4257
4258confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4259 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4260 it is already running. Default is ON.
4261
4262editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4263 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4264 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4265 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4266 Default is ON.
4267
4268history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4269 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4270 or the value of the environment variable
4271 GDBHISTFILE.
4272
4273history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4274 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4275 HISTSIZE.
4276
4277history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4278 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4279 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4280
4281history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4282 history expansion will be performed on
4283 command line input. The default is OFF.
4284
4285radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4286 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4287 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4288
4289height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4290 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4291 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4292 variable TERM.
4293
4294width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4295 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4296 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4297 variable TERM.
4298
4299Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4300``set width'' instead.
4301
4302print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4303 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4304 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4305 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4306
4307print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4308 is OFF.
4309
4310print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4311 "raw" form if off.
4312
4313print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4314 like instructions.
4315
4316print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4317
4318
4319 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4320
4321The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4322new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4323are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4324window.
4325
4326
4327 * Support for Shared Libraries
4328
4329GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4330Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4331before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4332happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4333At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4334from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4335shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4336It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4337
4338sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4339 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4340 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4341
4342info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4343
4344
4345 * Watchpoints
4346
4347A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4348expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4349tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4350quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4351problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4352more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4353
4354watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4355
4356info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4357
4358delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4359disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4360enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4361
4362
4363 * C++ multiple inheritance
4364
4365When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4366for C++ programs.
4367
4368 * C++ exception handling
4369
4370Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4371ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4372the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4373handler's context).
4374
4375catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4376 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4377 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4378
4379info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4380 current stack frame.
4381
4382
4383 * Minor command changes
4384
4385The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4386command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4387is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4388
4389The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4390at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4391frames without printing.
4392
4393 * New directory command
4394
4395'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4396The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4397about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4398with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4399find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4400
4401 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4402
4403For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4404for more details.
4405
4406GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4407two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4408Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4409where the program that you are debugging will run.