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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.7
5
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6* New commands
7
8set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
9show print frame-arguments
10 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
11 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
12
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13* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
14(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
15
fe6fbf8b 16* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 17is resolved.
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18
19* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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20including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
21and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 22
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23* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
24
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25* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
26registers on PowerPC targets.
27
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28* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
29targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
30
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31* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
32 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
33 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
34 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
35
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36* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
37building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
38target architectures.
39
40
8d5f9c6f 41*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 42
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43* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
44bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
45Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
46
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47* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
48symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
49-Bsymbolic linker option.
50
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51* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
52recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
53is not supported.
54
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55* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
56frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
57
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58* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
5932-bit or 64-bit register values.
60
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61* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
62
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63* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
64target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
65a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
66
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67* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
68automatically displayed as character or string data.
69
70* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
71arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
72as strings.
e1f48ead 73
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74* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
75for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 76only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 77
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78* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
79iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 80
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81* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
82ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
83has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
84
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85* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
86
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87* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
88
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89* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
90layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
91segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
92
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93* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
94immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
95
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96* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
97"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
98packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
99where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
100Windows and SymbianOS).
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101
102* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
103(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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104
105* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
106according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 107
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108* New commands
109
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110set remoteflow
111show remoteflow
112 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
113 when debugging using remote targets.
114
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115set mem inaccessible-by-default
116show mem inaccessible-by-default
117 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
118 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
119 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
120 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
121 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
122
123set breakpoint auto-hw
124show breakpoint auto-hw
125 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
126 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
127 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
128 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
129 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
130 including "next" and "finish".
131
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132catch exception
133catch exception unhandled
134 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
135
136catch assert
137 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
138
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139set sysroot
140show sysroot
141 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
142 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
143 an alias to "set sysroot".
144
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145info spu
146 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
147 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
148 architecture.
149
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150* New native configurations
151
152OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
153
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154set tdesc filename
155unset tdesc filename
156show tdesc filename
157 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
158 not query the target for its built-in description.
159
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160* New targets
161
54fe9172 162OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 163MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 164Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 165
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166* New remote packets
167
168QPassSignals:
169 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
170 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
171
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172qXfer:features:read:
173 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
174 features.
6dd09645 175
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176qXfer:spu:read:
177qXfer:spu:write:
178 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
179 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
180
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181qXfer:libraries:read:
182 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
183 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
184 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
185 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
186
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187* Removed targets
188
189Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
190
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191alpha*-*-osf1*
192alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 193d10v-*-*
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194hppa*-*-hiux*
195i[34567]86-ncr-*
196i[34567]86-*-dgux*
197i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
198i[34567]86-*-netware*
199i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
200i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
201i[34567]86-*-sco*
202i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
203i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
204i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
205i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
206i[34567]86-*-unixware*
207i[34567]86-*-sysv*
208i[34567]86-*-isc*
209m68*-cisco*-*
210m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 211mips*-*-pe
483367ee 212rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 213sh*-*-pe
483367ee 214
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215* Other removed features
216
217target abug
218target cpu32bug
219target est
220target rom68k
221
222 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
223
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224target hms
225target e7000
226target sh3
227target sh3e
228
229 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
230 H8/300.
231
232target ocd
233
234 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
235 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
236 interfaces.
237
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238DWARF 1 support
239
240 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
241 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
242
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243Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
244
245 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
246 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
247 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
248 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
249
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250MIPS ".pdr" sections
251
252 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
253 in debugging information.
254
255Scheme support
256
257 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
258 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
259
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260set mips stack-arg-size
261set mips saved-gpreg-size
262
263 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
264
6dd09645 265*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 266
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267* New targets
268
269Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 270Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 271
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272* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
273(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
274running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
275
276* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
277Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
278supported.
279
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280* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
281broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
282
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283* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
284stub provides the required support.
285
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286* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
287longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
288
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289* New commands
290
291set substitute-path
292unset substitute-path
293show substitute-path
294 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
295 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
296 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
297 between compilation and debugging.
298
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299set trace-commands
300show trace-commands
301 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
302 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
303 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
304
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305* REMOVED features
306
307The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
308
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309Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
310an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
311
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312The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
313
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314* New remote packets
315
316qSupported:
317 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
318 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
319 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
320 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
321 target.
322
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323qXfer:auxv:read:
324 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
325 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
326
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327qXfer:memory-map:read:
328 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
329 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
330
331vFlashErase:
332vFlashWrite:
333vFlashDone:
334 Erase and program a flash memory device.
335
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336* Removed remote packets
337
338qPart:auxv:read:
339 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
340 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
341
e374b601 342*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 343
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344* New targets
345
346Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
347
348Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
349
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350* New commands
351
352init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
353 only if it doesn't already have a value.
354
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355The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
356
357checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
358
359restart <n> Return the program state to a
360 previously saved state.
361
362info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
363
364delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
365
366set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
367 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
368
369info forks List forks of the user program that
370 are available to be debugged.
371
372fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
373 forks of the user program that are
374 available to be debugged.
375
376delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
377 that are available to be debugged (and
378 kill the forked process).
379
380detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
381 that are available to be debugged (and
382 allow the process to continue).
383
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384* New architecture
385
386Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
387
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388* Improved Windows host support
389
390GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
391native console support, and remote communications using either
392network sockets or serial ports.
393
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394* Improved Modula-2 language support
395
396GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
397basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
398pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
399printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
400written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
401GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
402
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403* REMOVED features
404
405The ARM rdi-share module.
406
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407The Netware NLM debug server.
408
53e5f3cf 409*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 410
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411* New native configurations
412
02a677ac 413OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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414OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
415
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416* New targets
417
418Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
419
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420* New command line options
421
422--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
423--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
424 the child (debugged) program exited with.
425--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
426 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
427 specified multiple times and in conjunction
428 with the --command (-x) option.
429
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430* Deprecated commands removed
431
432The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
433removed:
434
435 Command Replacement
436 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
437 othernames set arm disassembler
438 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
439 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
440 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
441 regs info registers
442
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443* New BSD user-level threads support
444
445It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
446library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
447configurations are:
448
449FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
450FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
451OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
452
453Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
454are not yet supported.
455
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456* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
457(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
458
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459* REMOVED configurations and files
460
461VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 462Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 463National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 464
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465* New "set print array-indexes" command
466
467After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
468when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
469behavior.
470
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471* VAX floating point support
472
473GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
474
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475* User-defined command support
476
477In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
478to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
479section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
480
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481*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
482
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483* New command line option
484
485GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
486debugging.
487
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488* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
489
490GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
491information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
492by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
493proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
494to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 495
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496* Internationalization
497
498When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
499internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
500continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
501
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502* Ada
503
504Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
505implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
506into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
507
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508* New native configurations
509
510GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
511
512* Remote 'p' packet
513
514GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
515packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
516
517* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
518
519GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
520The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
521features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
522i386 application).
523
524GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
525compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
526continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
527configurations:
528
529hppa-*-hpux
530ia64-*-aix
531mips-*-irix*
532*-*-lynx
533mips-*-linux-gnu
534sds protocol
535xdr protocol
536powerpc bdm protocol
537
538Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
539made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
540
541* OBSOLETE configurations and files
542
543Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
544been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
545configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
546permanently REMOVED.
547
548h8300-*-*
549mcore-*-*
550mn10300-*-*
551ns32k-*-*
552sh64-*-*
553v850-*-*
554
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555*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
556
557* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
558
559When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
560heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
561been fixed.
562
563* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
564
565When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
566fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
567IRIX long double values).
568
569* VAX and "next"
570
571A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
572command. This problem has been fixed.
573
860660cb 574*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 575
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576* Fix for ``many threads''
577
578On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
579rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
580error message:
581
582 ptrace: No such process.
583 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
584
585This problem has been fixed.
586
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587* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
588
589Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
590GDB to dump core).
591
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592* New ``start'' command.
593
594This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
595
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596* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
597
598Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
599live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
600platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
601
602FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
603FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
604NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
605NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
606NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
607OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
608OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
609OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
610OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
611
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612* Signal trampoline code overhauled
613
614Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
615These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
616of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
617call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
618signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
619
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620Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
621features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
622include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 623
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624* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
625
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626* New native configurations
627
97dc871c 628GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 629OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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630OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
631OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 632OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 633NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 634OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 635
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636* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
637
638GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
639The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
640including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
641migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
642compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
643work, was also included.
644
645GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
646module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
647
648h8300-*-*
649mcore-*-*
650mn10300-*-*
651ns32k-*-*
652sh64-*-*
653v850-*-*
654xstormy16-*-*
655
656Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
657made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
658
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659* REMOVED configurations and files
660
661Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
662Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
663Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
664Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
665Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
666AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
667Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
668decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
669riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
670sonymips mips-sony-*
671sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
672
e5fe55f7
AC
673*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
674
675* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
676
677The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
678GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
679command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
680program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
681with GDB".
682
683* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
684
685Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
686libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
687cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
688GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
689shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
690the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
691are created.
692
693Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
694
695* Fixed ISO-C build problems
696
697The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
698non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
699compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
700
701* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
702
703Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
704wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
705
706* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
707
708The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
709permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
710systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
711
712* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
713
714Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
715has been updated to use constant array sizes.
716
717* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
718
719GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
720its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
721panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
722
723* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
724
725When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
726by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
727not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
728
faae5abe 729*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 730
9175c9a3
MC
731* Removed --with-mmalloc
732
733Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
734conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
735
3cc87ec0
MK
736* Changes in AMD64 configurations
737
738The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
739the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
740and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
741you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
742
f0424ef6
MK
743* Revised SPARC target
744
745The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
746FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
747support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
748from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
749(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 750
59659be2
ILT
751* New C++ demangler
752
753GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
754names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
755with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
756programs.
757
9e08b29b
DJ
758* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
759
760GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
761arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
762encountered these.
763
8dfe8985
DC
764* C++ nested types and namespaces
765
766GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
767improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
768is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
769Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
770namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
771"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
772frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
773if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
774GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
775
cced5e27
MK
776* New native configurations
777
778NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 779OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 780OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
781OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
782OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 783
b4b4b794
KI
784* New debugging protocols
785
786M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
787
7989c619
AC
788* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
789
790The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
791and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
792tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
793
5994185b
AC
794* OBSOLETE configurations and files
795
796Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
797been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
798configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
799permanently REMOVED.
800
801Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
802Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
803Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
804Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
805Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
806AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
807Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
808decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
809riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
810sonymips mips-sony-*
811sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 812
0ddabb4c
AC
813* REMOVED configurations and files
814
815SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
816SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
817Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
818Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
819H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
820HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
821HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
822HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
823PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 824386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
825Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
826 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
827 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
828SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
829SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
830Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
831Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 832
c7f1390e
DJ
833*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
834
1fe43d45
AC
835* Objective-C
836
837Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
838integrated into GDB.
839
e6beb428
AC
840* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
841
842DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
843information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
844By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
845backtraces.
846
847The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
848have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
849DWARF 2 CFI support.
850
851* Hosted file I/O.
852
853GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
854file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
855remote protocol documentation for details.
856
857* All targets using the new architecture framework.
858
859All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
860architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
861to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
862ppc32 on ppc64).
863
864* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
865
866GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
867per-thread variables.
868
869* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
870
871GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
872GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
873
874* Separate debug info.
875
876GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
877automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
878of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
879system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
880and optional debug files.
881
882* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
883
884DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
885describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
886debugger.
887
888GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
889for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
890
891* Java
892
893A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
894Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
895considered "useable".
896
85f8f974
DJ
897* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
898
899The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
900commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
901kernel.
902
0fac0b41
DJ
903* GDB supports logging output to a file
904
905There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
906used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 907
6ad8ae5c
DJ
908* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
909
910The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
911disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
912command.
913
e286caf2 914* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
915
916The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
917registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
918
d28f9cdf
DJ
919* Profiling support
920
921A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
922be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
923session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
924"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
925data, for more informative profiling results.
926
da0f9dcd
AC
927* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
928
929The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
930option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 931"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
932
933Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
934removed.
935
fb9b6b35
JJ
936Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
937Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
938Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
939 in a subsequent -var-update.
940
954a4db8
MK
941* New native configurations.
942
943FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
944
6760f9e6
JB
945* Multi-arched targets.
946
b4263afa 947HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 948Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 949
1b831c93
AC
950* OBSOLETE configurations and files
951
952Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
953been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
954configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
955permanently REMOVED.
956
8b0e5691 957Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 958Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 959H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
960HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
961HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
962HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 963PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
964Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
965 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
966 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
967Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
968Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 969
5835abe7
NC
970* REMOVED configurations and files
971
972V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
973Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
974IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
975i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
976i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
977i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
978HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
979 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
980 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
981Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
982Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
983Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
984OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
985I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 986
a094c6fb
AC
987* MIPS $fp behavior changed
988
989The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
990the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
991context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
992address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
993The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
994
299ffc64 995*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 996
46248966
AC
997* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
998
999When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1000`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1001in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1002library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1003shared libs like mad''.
1004
b9d14705 1005* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1006
b9d14705
DJ
1007Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1008the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1009arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1010powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1011
e0e9281e
JB
1012* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1013
1014GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1015and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1016they expand.
1017
dd73b9bb
AC
1018The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1019invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1020
1021The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1022macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1023
e0e9281e
JB
1024Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1025information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1026your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1027information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1028
2250ee0c
CV
1029* Multi-arched targets.
1030
6e3ba3b8
JT
1031DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1032DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1033NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1034National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1035Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1036Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1037
cd9bfe15 1038* New targets.
e33ce519 1039
456f8b9d
DB
1040Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1041
e33ce519 1042
da8ca43d
JT
1043* New native configurations
1044
1045Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1046SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1047MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1048UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1049
cd9bfe15
AC
1050* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1051
1052Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1053been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1054configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1055permanently REMOVED.
1056
92eb23c5 1057Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1058OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1059IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1060Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1061Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1062Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1063i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1064i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1065i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1066HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1067 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1068 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1069I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1070
db034ac5
AC
1071* OBSOLETE languages
1072
1073CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1074
cd9bfe15
AC
1075* REMOVED configurations and files
1076
1077AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1078A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1079AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1080AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1081AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1082
1083testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1084
20f01a46
DH
1085* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1086
1087This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1088commands. The default is 1024.
1089
a5941fbf
MK
1090* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1091
1092Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1093
89743e04
MS
1094* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1095
1096These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1097to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1098from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1099
9fb14e79
JB
1100* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1101
1102The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1103including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1104of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1105
2037aebb
AC
1106*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1107
1108* New targets.
1109
1110Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1111
1112* Bug fixes
1113
1114gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1115mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1116Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1117
1118gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1119dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1120Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1121
1122Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1123Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1124By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1125
1126i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1127avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1128By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1129
37057839 1130*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1131
1a703748
MS
1132* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1133
1134This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1135really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1136In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1137target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1138This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1139(notably embedded) targets.
1140
cefd4ef5
MS
1141* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1142
55241689
AC
1143This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1144process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1145GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1146hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1147
352ed7b4
MS
1148* New command line option
1149
1150GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1151
1152* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1153
1154There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1155command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1156a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1157be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1158open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1159issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1160a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1161it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1162GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1163is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1164
fe419ffc
RE
1165* Changes in ARM configurations.
1166
1167Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1168configuration is fully multi-arch.
1169
eb7cedd9
MK
1170* New native configurations
1171
fe419ffc 1172ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1173x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1174AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1175Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1176
c9f63e6b
CV
1177* New targets
1178
1179Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1180
9b4ff276
AC
1181* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1182
1183Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1184been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1185configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1186permanently REMOVED.
1187
1188AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1189A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1190AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1191AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1192AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1193
b4ceaee6 1194testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1195
e2caac18
AC
1196* REMOVED configurations and files
1197
1198TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1199WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1200PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1201PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1202PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1203Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1204Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1205 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1206SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1207Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1208Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1209ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1210Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1211
c2a727fa
TT
1212* Changes to command line processing
1213
1214The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1215for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1216
467d8519
TT
1217* Changes to key bindings
1218
1219There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1220
7072a954
AC
1221*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1222
1223Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1224
1225Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1226corrupted.
1227
1228Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1229
1230Numerous documentation fixes.
1231
1232Numerous testsuite fixes.
1233
34f47bc4 1234*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1235
1236* New native configurations
1237
1238Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1239x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1240MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1241MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1242ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1243s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1244
bf64bfd6
AC
1245* New targets
1246
def90278 1247Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1248CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1249UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1250
17e78a56 1251* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1252
1253x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1254Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1255Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1256 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1257TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1258WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1259Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1260PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1261PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1262PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1263SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1264Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1265ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1266Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1267
17e78a56
AC
1268stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1269kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1270
7fcca85b
AC
1271Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1272been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1273configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1274permanently REMOVED.
1275
a196c81c 1276* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1277
1278Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1279Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1280Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1281ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1282Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1283ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1284
6d6b80e5 1285* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1286
6d6b80e5 1287GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1288sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1289present.
1290
bf64bfd6
AC
1291* Other news:
1292
e23194cb
EZ
1293* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1294
1295* The MI enabled by default.
1296
1297The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1298revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1299engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1300using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1301which is now deprecated.
1302
1303* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1304
1305GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1306main features are supported:
1307
1308 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1309
1310 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1311 extension;
1312
1313 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1314
1315 - a Pascal expression parser.
1316
1317However, some important features are not yet supported.
1318
1319 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1320
1321 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1322
1323 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1324 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1325
1326 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1327
1328 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1329
1330* Changes in completion.
1331
1332Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1333to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1334users expect at the shell prompt.
1335
1336Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1337`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1338program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1339files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1340be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1341considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1342name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1343
1344`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1345
1346* New platform-independent commands:
1347
1348It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1349hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1350documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1351
1352* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1353
d7275149
MK
1354Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1355revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1356many threads as your system allows you to have.
1357
e23194cb
EZ
1358Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1359
d7275149
MK
1360Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1361multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1362
1363* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1364
1365Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1366
e23194cb
EZ
1367GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1368debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1369supported.)
1370
1371* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1372
1373Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1374breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1375implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1376put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1377and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1378registers.
1379
1380The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1381debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1382watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1383
1384* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1385
1386New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1387the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1388
1389New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1390display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1391IDT.
1392
1393New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1394from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1395New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1396a given linear address.
1397
1398GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1399program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1400which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1401
1402DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1403
6c56c069
EZ
1404It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1405
e23194cb
EZ
1406* Changes in documentation.
1407
1408All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1409Documentation License.
1410
1411Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1412manual.
1413
1414TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1415
1416Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1417manual.
1418
1419The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1420documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1421hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1422
5d6640b1
AC
1423* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1424
1425The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1426``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1427contents of this file.
1428
1a1d8446
AC
1429* gdba.el deleted
1430
1431GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1432
9debab2f 1433*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1434
c63ce875
EZ
1435* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1436
1437Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1438programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1439displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1440greater level of detail.
1441
1442* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1443
1444It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1445bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1446on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1447written.
1448
1449* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1450
1451The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1452necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1453machines ``out of the box''.
1454
1455The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1456possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1457signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1458would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1459interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1460
1461It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1462standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1463even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1464and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1465terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1466
1467The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1468enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1469also works.
1470
1471DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1472GDB.
1473
1474It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1475directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1476times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1477breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1478
ed9a39eb
JM
1479* New native configurations
1480
1481ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1482PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1483
7a292a7a
SS
1484* New targets
1485
96baa820 1486Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1487x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1488PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1489TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1490
085dd6e6
JM
1491* OBSOLETE configurations
1492
1493Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1494Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1495Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1496ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1497Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1498
9debab2f
AC
1499Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1500but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1501these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1502be permanently REMOVED.
1503
5330533d
SS
1504* Gould support removed
1505
1506Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1507
bc9e5bbf
AC
1508* New features for SVR4
1509
1510On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1511without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1512load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1513
1514* Many C++ enhancements
1515
1516C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1517in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1518
adf40b2e
JM
1519* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1520
1521A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1522sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1523with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1524``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1525
1526 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1527 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1528
43e526b9
JM
1529* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1530
1531A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1532expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1533instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1534
1535The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1536added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1537
96baa820
JM
1538* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1539
1540The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1541``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1542include ``set remote P-packet''.
1543
11cf8741
JM
1544* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1545
1546The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1547accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1548``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1549
7876dd43
DB
1550* ``apropos'' command added.
1551
1552The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1553documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1554try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1555
bc9e5bbf
AC
1556* New MI interface
1557
1558A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1559interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1560process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1561"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1562enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1563
1564 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1565
c906108c
SS
1566*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1567
1568* New native configurations
1569
1570HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1571HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1572M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1573
1574* New targets
1575
1576Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1577Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1578Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1579
1580* OBSOLETE configurations
1581
1582Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1583
1584Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1585but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1586these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1587be permanently REMOVED.
1588
1589* ANSI/ISO C
1590
1591As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1592buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1593containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1594use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1595available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1596configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1597information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1598already.
1599
1600* Readline 2.2
1601
1602GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1603
1604* set extension-language
1605
1606You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1607languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1608you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1609 set extension-language .c c++
1610The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1611and their associated languages.
1612
1613* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1614
1615When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1616you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1617PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1618
1619 set processor NAME
1620
1621sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1622following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1623
1624 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1625 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1626 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1627 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1628 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1629 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1630 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1631 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1632 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1633 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1634 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1635
1636At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1637special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1638registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1639only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1640
1641* HP-UX support
1642
1643Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1644more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1645library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1646support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1647for xdb and dbx commands.
1648
1649* Catchpoints
1650
1651HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1652generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1653to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1654
1655This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1656argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1657output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1658
1659* Debugging across forks
1660
1661On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1662in the inferior.
1663
1664* TUI
1665
1666HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1667it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1668configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1669
1670* GDB remote protocol additions
1671
1672A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1673Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1674fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1675allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1676
1677For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1678full 64-bit address. The command
1679
1680 set remoteaddresssize 32
1681
1682can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1683the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1684will be discarded.
1685
1686In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1687command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1688
1689 maint packet heythere
1690
1691sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1692disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1693time.
1694
1695The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1696target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1697downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1698
1699* Tracing can collect general expressions
1700
1701You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1702further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1703doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1704
1705* mask-address variable for Mips
1706
1707For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1708a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1709of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1710
1711* Higher serial baud rates
1712
1713GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1714230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1715to achieve all of these rates.)
1716
1717* i960 simulator
1718
1719The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1720builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1721
1722
1723*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1724
1725* New native configurations
1726
1727Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1728Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1729Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1730PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1731PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1732Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1733Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1734
1735* New targets
1736
1737Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1738Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1739Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1740Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1741MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1742MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1743MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1744Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1745Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1746Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1747NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1748
1749* New debugging protocols
1750
1751ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1752M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1753DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1754PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1755PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1756Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1757
1758* DWARF 2
1759
1760All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1761format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1762information.
1763
1764* Java frontend
1765
1766GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1767only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1768
1769* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1770
1771For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1772loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1773locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1774
1775* Live range splitting
1776
1777GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1778range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1779more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1780
1781* Hurd support
1782
1783GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1784updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1785
1786* ARM Thumb support
1787
1788GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1789instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1790instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1791accordingly.
1792
1793* MIPS16 support
1794
1795GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1796instruction set.
1797
1798* Overlay support
1799
1800GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1801linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1802will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1803control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1804additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1805in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1806
1807* info symbol
1808
1809The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1810the symbol at the specified address.
1811
1812* Trace support
1813
1814The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1815asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1816extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1817includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1818file tracepoint.c for more details.
1819
1820* MIPS simulator
1821
1822Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1823by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1824of most MIPS variants.
1825
1826* Sparc simulator
1827
1828Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1829by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1830Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1831
1832* set architecture
1833
1834For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1835basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1836architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1837the possible architectures.
1838
1839*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1840
1841* New native configurations
1842
1843Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1844M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1845PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1846PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1847PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1848RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1849
1850* New targets
1851
1852ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1853I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1854MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1855MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1856PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1857Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1858Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1859
1860* PowerPC simulator
1861
1862The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1863contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1864PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1865basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1866performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1867
1868* Solaris 2.5
1869
1870GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1871
1872* Windows 95/NT native
1873
1874GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1875To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1876which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1877Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1878ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1879
1880* dont-repeat command
1881
1882If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1883command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1884useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1885extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1886
1887* Send break instead of ^C
1888
1889The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1890rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1891GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1892
1893* Remote protocol timeout
1894
1895The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1896that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1897to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1898
1899* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1900
1901By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1902loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1903stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1904when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1905in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1906
1907Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1908/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1909automatically on hpux10.
1910
1911* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1912
1913Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1914
1915* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1916
1917When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1918may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1919the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1920every character. The default value is 1050.
1921
1922* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1923
1924If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1925a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1926replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1927details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1928remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1929to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1930
1931* Speedups for remote debugging
1932
1933GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1934the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1935and more efficient S-record downloading.
1936
1937* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1938
1939GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1940Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1941
1942*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1943
1944* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1945
1946The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1947can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1948
1949* Remote targets use caching
1950
1951Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1952remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1953it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1954debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1955off' turns the the data cache off.
1956
1957* Remote targets may have threads
1958
1959The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1960in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1961gdb/remote.c for details.
1962
1963* NetROM support
1964
1965If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1966support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1967acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1968write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1969support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1970another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1971sequence is something like
1972
1973 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1974 load <prog>
1975 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1976
1977* Macintosh host
1978
1979GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1980may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1981it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1982available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1983device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1984directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1985scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1986mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1987
1988* Autoconf
1989
1990GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1991but does simplify configuration and building.
1992
1993* hpux10
1994
1995GDB now supports hpux10.
1996
1997*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1998
1999* New native configurations
2000
2001x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2002x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2003NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2004Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2005
2006* New targets
2007
2008A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2009HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2010CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2011PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2012WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2013
2014* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2015
2016GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2017possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2018filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2019the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2020if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2021
2022* Arguments to user-defined commands
2023
2024User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2025Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2026trivial example:
2027define adder
2028 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2029
2030To execute the command use:
2031adder 1 2 3
2032
2033Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2034Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2035use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2036
2037* New `if' and `while' commands
2038
2039This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2040commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2041expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2042execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2043terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2044`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2045if the expression is zero.
2046
2047* Fortran source language mode
2048
2049GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2050Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2051variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2052with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2053Fortran compilers.
2054
2055* Better HPUX support
2056
2057Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2058running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2059processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2060for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2061that behavior do the following before running the program:
2062
2063 adb -w a.out
2064 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2065 control-d
2066
2067This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2068To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2069
2070 adb -w a.out
2071 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2072 control-d
2073
2074You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2075the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2076external linkage.
2077
2078GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2079HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2080
2081* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2082
2083You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2084commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2085current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2086"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2087associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2088configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2089
2090* New DOS host serial code
2091
2092This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2093no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2094a PC's serial port.
2095
2096*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2097
2098* New "complete" command
2099
2100This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2101were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2102
2103* Trailing space optional in prompt
2104
2105"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2106allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2107
2108* Breakpoint hit counts
2109
2110"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2111has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2112can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2113to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2114less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2115that breakpoint.
2116
2117* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2118
2119"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2120an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2121arrays actually contain only short strings.
2122
2123* Shared library breakpoints
2124
2125In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2126breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2127
2128* Hardware watchpoints
2129
2130There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2131targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2132
55241689 2133Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2134
2135* Annotations
2136
2137Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2138and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2139
2140* Improved Irix 5 support
2141
2142GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2143
2144* Improved HPPA support
2145
2146GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2147
2148* New native configurations
2149
2150Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2151HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2152Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2153RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2154
2155* New targets
2156
2157OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2158MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2159Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2160
2161* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2162
2163There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2164This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2165
2166* Fixes
2167
2168As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2169and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2170
2171*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2172
2173* Irix 5 is now supported
2174
2175* HPPA support
2176
2177GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2178to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2179GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2180of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2181can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2182
2183
2184*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2185
2186* User visible changes:
2187
2188* Remote Debugging
2189
2190The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2191target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2192debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2193integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2194debugging info for the mips target).
2195
2196* DEC Alpha native support
2197
2198GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2199debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2200work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2201Alpha-specific notes.
2202
2203* Preliminary thread implementation
2204
2205GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2206
2207* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2208
2209This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2210to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2211for details).
2212
2213* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2214
2215This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2216mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2217call methods, ...etc.
2218
2219*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2220
2221 * User visible changes:
2222
2223Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2224supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2225other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2226somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2227
2228Filename completion now works.
2229
2230When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2231arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2232addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2233
2234All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2235vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2236should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2237your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2238to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2239
2240 * DEC alpha support
2241
2242This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2243cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2244
2245
2246*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2247
2248 * Testsuite
2249
2250This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2251The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2252via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2253
2254 * C++ demangling
2255
2256'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2257emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2258Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2259disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2260use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2261
2262 * Simulators
2263
2264GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2265So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2266Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2267
2268 * New targets supported
2269
2270H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2271H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2272SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2273Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2274IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2275
2276Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2277version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2278GO32 memory extender.
2279
2280 * New remote protocols
2281
2282MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2283
2284 * New source languages supported
2285
2286This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2287used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2288into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2289
2290
2291*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2292
2293 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2294
2295GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2296version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2297University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2298compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2299format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2300(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2301
2302Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2303
2304 * Faster and better demangling
2305
2306We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2307demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2308character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2309only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2310This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2311increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2312symbol lookups.
2313
2314`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2315from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2316compiler does not actually implement.
2317
2318 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2319
2320In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2321inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2322recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2323very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2324The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2325circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2326fix.
2327
2328The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2329release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2330
2331 * Improved configure script
2332
2333The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2334you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2335host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2336done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2337
2338We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2339version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2340`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2341The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2342only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2343We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2344
2345 * Documentation improvements
2346
2347There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2348produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2349before submitting changes.
2350
2351The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2352M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2353`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2354you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2355a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2356
2357*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2358We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2359been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2360or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2361`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2362around this problem.
2363
2364 * New features
2365
2366GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2367the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2368`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2369the target program.
2370
2371The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2372how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2373
2374 * New native hosts supported
2375
2376HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2377386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2378
2379 * New targets supported
2380
2381AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2382
2383 * New file formats supported
2384
2385BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2386HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2387
2388 * Major bug fixes
2389
2390Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2391
2392We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2393printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2394
2395We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2396for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2397release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2398
2399You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2400will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2401
2402We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2403for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2404especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2405libraries.
2406
2407The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2408information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2409command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2410any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2411when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2412
2413 * Internal improvements
2414
2415GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2416debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2417
2418GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2419Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2420symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2421contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2422shared code that handles any of them.
2423
2424 * New command line options
2425
2426We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2427
2428 * Mmalloc licensing
2429
2430The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2431General Public License.
2432
2433*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2434
2435 * Host/native/target split
2436
2437GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2438hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2439target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2440local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2441ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2442
2443The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2444GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2445is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2446code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2447any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2448built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2449handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2450
2451GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2452It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2453plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2454
2455 * New hosts supported
2456
2457HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2458386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2459386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2460
2461 * New targets supported
2462
2463Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
246468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2465
2466 * New native hosts supported
2467
2468386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2469 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2470386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2471
2472 * New file formats supported
2473
2474BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2475supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2476format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2477
2478 * New commands
2479
2480`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2481`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2482These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2483
2484`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2485
2486You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2487scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2488prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2489executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2490
2491 * C++ improvements
2492
2493We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2494info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2495symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2496
2497Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2498
2499 * Major bug fixes
2500
2501The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2502fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2503by the compiler.
2504
2505We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2506support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2507
2508John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2509slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2510that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2511purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2512the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2513mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2514
2515Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2516about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2517completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2518we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2519
2520 * AMD 29k support
2521
2522A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2523specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2524calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2525usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2526in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2527
2528We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2529Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2530of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2531resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2532
2533 * Remote interfaces
2534
2535We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2536with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2537message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2538This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2539needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2540breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2541each instruction being stepped through.
2542
2543The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2544registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2545
2546There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2547find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2548Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2549processor with a serial port.
2550
2551 * Configuration
2552
2553Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2554`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2555supported, and what files each one uses.
2556
2557 * Library changes
2558
2559There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2560disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2561Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2562disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2563
2564The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2565Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2566can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2567grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2568
2569 * Documentation
2570
2571The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2572reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2573as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2574encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2575system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2576bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2577
2578And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2579
2580
2581*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2582
2583 * Better support for C++ function names
2584
2585GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2586names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2587(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2588single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2589Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2590
2591GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2592the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2593You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2594lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2595for the list of formats.
2596
2597 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2598
2599Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2600C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2601directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2602can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2603usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2604about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2605this problem.)
2606
2607 * New 'maintenance' command
2608
2609All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2610the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2611can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2612
2613 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2614 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2615 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2616 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2617 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2618 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2619
2620The following commands are new:
2621
2622 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2623 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2624 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2625
2626 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2627
2628We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2629(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2630be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2631read after argv processing.
2632
2633 * New hosts supported
2634
2635Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2636
55241689 2637GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2638
2639We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2640is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2641for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2642masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2643fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2644It costs extra.
2645
2646 * New targets supported
2647
2648Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2649
2650 * More smarts about finding #include files
2651
2652GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2653all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2654greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2655especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2656the one that contains your sources.
2657
2658We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2659breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2660try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2661
2662 * Interesting infernals change
2663
2664GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2665section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2666target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2667stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2668
2669 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2670
2671There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2672 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2673 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2674
2675See the ChangeLog for details.
2676
2677*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2678
2679 * New machines supported (host and target)
2680
2681IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2682
2683SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2684
2685 * New malloc package
2686
2687GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2688Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2689capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2690This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2691pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2692more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2693
2694 * info proc
2695
2696The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2697'help info proc' for details.
2698
2699 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2700
2701The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2702Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2703possible.
2704
2705 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2706
2707Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2708support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2709conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2710environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2711that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2712in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2713
2714 * Cross byte order fixes
2715
2716Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2717targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2718
2719 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2720
2721If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2722system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2723`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2724program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2725called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2726Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2727and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2728the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2729option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2730starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2731
2732You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2733the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2734information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2735slower, but makes future operations faster.
2736
2737The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2738build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2739A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2740use is:
2741
2742 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2743
2744The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2745It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2746shared across multiple host platforms.
2747
2748 * longjmp() handling
2749
2750GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2751siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2752all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2753platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2754
2755 * Solaris 2.0
2756
2757Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2758this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2759reading symbols.
2760
2761 * Bug fixes
2762
2763As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2764People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2765crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2766
2767*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2768
2769 * New machines supported (host and target)
2770
2771SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2772 (except core files)
2773BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2774Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2775
2776 * New machines supported (target)
2777
2778AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2779
2780 * C++ support
2781
2782GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2783The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2784per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2785
2786GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2787`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2788extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2789good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2790will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2791released.
2792
2793 * New features for SVR4
2794
2795GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2796shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2797only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2798
2799The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2800on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2801it prints the address mappings of the process.
2802
2803If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2804bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2805
2806 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2807
2808Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2809now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2810skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2811make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2812same code linked statically.
2813
2814 * New Getopt
2815
2816GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2817version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2818continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2819Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2820added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2821future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2822
2823 * Bugs fixed
2824
2825The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2826Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2827See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2828
2829
2830*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2831
2832 * New machines supported (host and target)
2833
2834Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2835NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2836Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2837
2838 * Almost SCO Unix support
2839
2840We had hoped to support:
2841SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2842(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2843that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2844about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2845
2846 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2847
2848GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2849debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2850is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2851send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2852reqired (if any).
2853
2854 * New Readline
2855
2856GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2857is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2858required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2859
2860 * Bugs fixed
2861
2862The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2863Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2864See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2865
2866 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2867
2868GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2869supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2870symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2871
2872Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2873mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2874debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2875mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2876version 2.
2877
2878Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2879really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2880line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2881variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2882situation somewhat.
2883
2884When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2885However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2886methods.
2887
2888We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2889DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2890encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2891
2892
2893*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2894
2895 * Improved configuration
2896
2897Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2898Porting BFD is simpler.
2899
2900 * Stepping improved
2901
2902The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2903of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2904in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2905function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2906
2907 * Bug fixing
2908
2909Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2910
2911 * New host supported (not target)
2912
2913Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2914
2915
2916*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2917
2918 * Multiple source language support
2919
2920GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2921It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2922and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2923language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2924You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2925`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2926
2927 * GDB and Modula-2
2928
2929GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2930currently under development at the State University of New York at
2931Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2932continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2933
2934Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2935debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2936symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2937
2938There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2939in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2940
2941 * set write on/off
2942
2943GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2944a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2945the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2946by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2947effect immediately.
2948
2949 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2950
2951When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2952shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2953The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2954examining core files.
2955
2956 * set listsize
2957
2958You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2959The default is 10.
2960
2961 * New machines supported (host and target)
2962
2963SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2964Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2965Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2966
2967 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2968
2969IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2970
2971 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2972
2973AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2974AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2975Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2976
2977 * New remote interfaces
2978
2979AMD 29000 Adapt
2980AMD 29000 Minimon
2981
2982
2983*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2984
2985 * New Facilities
2986
2987Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2988
2989Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2990target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2991is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2992remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2993remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2994also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2995using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2996stub on the target system.
2997
2998New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2999
3000GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3001library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3002object file types such as a.out and coff.
3003
3004There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3005refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3006
3007
3008 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3009
3010All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3011by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3012
3013For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3014``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3015Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3016
3017What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3018print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3019will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3020all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3021
3022confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3023 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3024 it is already running. Default is ON.
3025
3026editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3027 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3028 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3029 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3030 Default is ON.
3031
3032history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3033 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3034 or the value of the environment variable
3035 GDBHISTFILE.
3036
3037history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3038 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3039 HISTSIZE.
3040
3041history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3042 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3043 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3044
3045history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3046 history expansion will be performed on
3047 command line input. The default is OFF.
3048
3049radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3050 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3051 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3052
3053height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3054 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3055 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3056 variable TERM.
3057
3058width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3059 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3060 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3061 variable TERM.
3062
3063Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3064``set width'' instead.
3065
3066print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3067 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3068 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3069 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3070
3071print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3072 is OFF.
3073
3074print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3075 "raw" form if off.
3076
3077print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3078 like instructions.
3079
3080print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3081
3082
3083 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3084
3085The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3086new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3087are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3088window.
3089
3090
3091 * Support for Shared Libraries
3092
3093GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3094Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3095before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3096happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3097At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3098from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3099shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3100It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3101
3102sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3103 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3104 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3105
3106info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3107
3108
3109 * Watchpoints
3110
3111A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3112expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3113tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3114quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3115problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3116more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3117
3118watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3119
3120info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3121
3122delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3123disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3124enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3125
3126
3127 * C++ multiple inheritance
3128
3129When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3130for C++ programs.
3131
3132 * C++ exception handling
3133
3134Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3135ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3136the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3137handler's context).
3138
3139catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3140 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3141 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3142
3143info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3144 current stack frame.
3145
3146
3147 * Minor command changes
3148
3149The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3150command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3151is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3152
3153The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3154at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3155frames without printing.
3156
3157 * New directory command
3158
3159'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3160The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3161about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3162with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3163find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3164
3165 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3166
3167For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3168for more details.
3169
3170GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3171two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3172Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3173where the program that you are debugging will run.