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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.5
5
6*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 7
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8* New targets
9
10Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
11
12Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
13
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14* New commands
15
16init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
17 only if it doesn't already have a value.
18
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19The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
20
21checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
22
23restart <n> Return the program state to a
24 previously saved state.
25
26info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
27
28delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
29
30set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
31 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
32
33info forks List forks of the user program that
34 are available to be debugged.
35
36fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
37 forks of the user program that are
38 available to be debugged.
39
40delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
41 that are available to be debugged (and
42 kill the forked process).
43
44detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
45 that are available to be debugged (and
46 allow the process to continue).
47
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48* New architecture
49
50Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
51
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52* Improved Windows host support
53
54GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
55native console support, and remote communications using either
56network sockets or serial ports.
57
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58* REMOVED features
59
60The ARM rdi-share module.
61
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62The Netware NLM debug server.
63
53e5f3cf 64*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 65
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66* New native configurations
67
02a677ac 68OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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69OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
70
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71* New targets
72
73Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
74
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75* New command line options
76
77--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
78--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
79 the child (debugged) program exited with.
80--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
81 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
82 specified multiple times and in conjunction
83 with the --command (-x) option.
84
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85* Deprecated commands removed
86
87The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
88removed:
89
90 Command Replacement
91 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
92 othernames set arm disassembler
93 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
94 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
95 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
96 regs info registers
97
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98* New BSD user-level threads support
99
100It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
101library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
102configurations are:
103
104FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
105FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
106OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
107
108Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
109are not yet supported.
110
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111* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
112(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
113
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114* REMOVED configurations and files
115
116VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 117Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 118National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 119
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120* New "set print array-indexes" command
121
122After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
123when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
124behavior.
125
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126* VAX floating point support
127
128GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
129
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130* User-defined command support
131
132In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
133to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
134section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
135
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136*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
137
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138* New command line option
139
140GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
141debugging.
142
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143* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
144
145GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
146information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
147by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
148proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
149to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 150
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151* Internationalization
152
153When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
154internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
155continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
156
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157* Ada
158
159Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
160implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
161into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
162
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163* New native configurations
164
165GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
166
167* Remote 'p' packet
168
169GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
170packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
171
172* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
173
174GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
175The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
176features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
177i386 application).
178
179GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
180compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
181continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
182configurations:
183
184hppa-*-hpux
185ia64-*-aix
186mips-*-irix*
187*-*-lynx
188mips-*-linux-gnu
189sds protocol
190xdr protocol
191powerpc bdm protocol
192
193Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
194made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
195
196* OBSOLETE configurations and files
197
198Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
199been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
200configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
201permanently REMOVED.
202
203h8300-*-*
204mcore-*-*
205mn10300-*-*
206ns32k-*-*
207sh64-*-*
208v850-*-*
209
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210*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
211
212* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
213
214When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
215heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
216been fixed.
217
218* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
219
220When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
221fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
222IRIX long double values).
223
224* VAX and "next"
225
226A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
227command. This problem has been fixed.
228
860660cb 229*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 230
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231* Fix for ``many threads''
232
233On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
234rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
235error message:
236
237 ptrace: No such process.
238 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
239
240This problem has been fixed.
241
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242* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
243
244Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
245GDB to dump core).
246
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247* New ``start'' command.
248
249This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
250
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251* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
252
253Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
254live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
255platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
256
257FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
258FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
259NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
260NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
261NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
262OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
263OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
264OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
265OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
266
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267* Signal trampoline code overhauled
268
269Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
270These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
271of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
272call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
273signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
274
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275Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
276features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
277include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 278
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279* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
280
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281* New native configurations
282
97dc871c 283GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 284OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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285OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
286OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 287OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 288NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 289OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 290
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291* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
292
293GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
294The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
295including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
296migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
297compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
298work, was also included.
299
300GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
301module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
302
303h8300-*-*
304mcore-*-*
305mn10300-*-*
306ns32k-*-*
307sh64-*-*
308v850-*-*
309xstormy16-*-*
310
311Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
312made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
313
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314* REMOVED configurations and files
315
316Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
317Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
318Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
319Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
320Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
321AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
322Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
323decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
324riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
325sonymips mips-sony-*
326sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
327
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328*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
329
330* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
331
332The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
333GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
334command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
335program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
336with GDB".
337
338* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
339
340Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
341libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
342cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
343GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
344shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
345the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
346are created.
347
348Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
349
350* Fixed ISO-C build problems
351
352The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
353non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
354compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
355
356* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
357
358Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
359wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
360
361* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
362
363The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
364permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
365systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
366
367* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
368
369Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
370has been updated to use constant array sizes.
371
372* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
373
374GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
375its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
376panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
377
378* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
379
380When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
381by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
382not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
383
faae5abe 384*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 385
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386* Removed --with-mmalloc
387
388Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
389conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
390
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391* Changes in AMD64 configurations
392
393The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
394the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
395and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
396you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
397
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398* Revised SPARC target
399
400The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
401FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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402support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
403from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
404(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 405
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406* New C++ demangler
407
408GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
409names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
410with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
411programs.
412
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413* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
414
415GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
416arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
417encountered these.
418
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419* C++ nested types and namespaces
420
421GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
422improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
423is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
424Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
425namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
426"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
427frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
428if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
429GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
430
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431* New native configurations
432
433NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 434OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 435OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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436OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
437OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 438
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439* New debugging protocols
440
441M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
442
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443* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
444
445The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
446and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
447tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
448
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449* OBSOLETE configurations and files
450
451Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
452been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
453configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
454permanently REMOVED.
455
456Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
457Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
458Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
459Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
460Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
461AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
462Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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463decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
464riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
465sonymips mips-sony-*
466sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 467
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468* REMOVED configurations and files
469
470SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
471SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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472Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
473Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
474H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
475HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
476HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
477HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
478PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 479386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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480Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
481 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
482 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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483SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
484SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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485Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
486Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 487
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488*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
489
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490* Objective-C
491
492Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
493integrated into GDB.
494
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495* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
496
497DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
498information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
499By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
500backtraces.
501
502The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
503have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
504DWARF 2 CFI support.
505
506* Hosted file I/O.
507
508GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
509file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
510remote protocol documentation for details.
511
512* All targets using the new architecture framework.
513
514All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
515architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
516to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
517ppc32 on ppc64).
518
519* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
520
521GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
522per-thread variables.
523
524* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
525
526GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
527GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
528
529* Separate debug info.
530
531GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
532automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
533of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
534system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
535and optional debug files.
536
537* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
538
539DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
540describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
541debugger.
542
543GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
544for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
545
546* Java
547
548A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
549Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
550considered "useable".
551
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552* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
553
554The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
555commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
556kernel.
557
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558* GDB supports logging output to a file
559
560There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
561used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 562
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563* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
564
565The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
566disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
567command.
568
e286caf2 569* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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570
571The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
572registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
573
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574* Profiling support
575
576A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
577be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
578session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
579"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
580data, for more informative profiling results.
581
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582* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
583
584The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
585option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 586"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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587
588Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
589removed.
590
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591Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
592Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
593Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
594 in a subsequent -var-update.
595
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596* New native configurations.
597
598FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
599
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600* Multi-arched targets.
601
b4263afa 602HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 603Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 604
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605* OBSOLETE configurations and files
606
607Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
608been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
609configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
610permanently REMOVED.
611
8b0e5691 612Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 613Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 614H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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615HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
616HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
617HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 618PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
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619Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
620 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
621 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
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622Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
623Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 624
5835abe7
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625* REMOVED configurations and files
626
627V850EA ISA
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AC
628Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
629IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
630i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
631i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
632i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
633HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
634 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
635 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
636Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
637Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
638Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
639OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
640I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 641
a094c6fb
AC
642* MIPS $fp behavior changed
643
644The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
645the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
646context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
647address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
648The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
649
299ffc64 650*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 651
46248966
AC
652* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
653
654When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
655`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
656in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
657library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
658shared libs like mad''.
659
b9d14705 660* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 661
b9d14705
DJ
662Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
663the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
664arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
665powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 666
e0e9281e
JB
667* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
668
669GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
670and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
671they expand.
672
dd73b9bb
AC
673The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
674invocations in expression, and shows the result.
675
676The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
677macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
678
e0e9281e
JB
679Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
680information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
681your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
682information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
683
2250ee0c
CV
684* Multi-arched targets.
685
6e3ba3b8
JT
686DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
687DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 688NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 689National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
690Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
691Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 692
cd9bfe15 693* New targets.
e33ce519 694
456f8b9d
DB
695Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
696
e33ce519 697
da8ca43d
JT
698* New native configurations
699
700Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 701SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 702MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 703UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 704
cd9bfe15
AC
705* OBSOLETE configurations and files
706
707Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
708been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
709configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
710permanently REMOVED.
711
92eb23c5 712Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 713OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 714IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 715Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 716Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 717Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
718i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
719i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
720i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
721HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
722 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
723 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 724I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 725
db034ac5
AC
726* OBSOLETE languages
727
728CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
729
cd9bfe15
AC
730* REMOVED configurations and files
731
732AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
733A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
734AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
735AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
736AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
737
738testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
739
20f01a46
DH
740* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
741
742This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
743commands. The default is 1024.
744
a5941fbf
MK
745* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
746
747Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
748
89743e04
MS
749* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
750
751These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
752to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
753from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 754
9fb14e79
JB
755* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
756
757The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
758including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
759of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
760
2037aebb
AC
761*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
762
763* New targets.
764
765Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
766
767* Bug fixes
768
769gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
770mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
771Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
772
773gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
774dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
775Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
776
777Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
778Surprisingly enough, it works now.
779By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
780
781i386 hardware watchpoint support:
782avoid misses on second run for some targets.
783By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
784
37057839 785*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 786
1a703748
MS
787* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
788
789This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
790really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
791In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
792target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
793This can be a significant performance improvement on some
794(notably embedded) targets.
795
cefd4ef5
MS
796* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
797
55241689
AC
798This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
799process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
800GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
801hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 802
352ed7b4
MS
803* New command line option
804
805GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
806
807* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
808
809There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
810command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
811a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
812be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
813open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
814issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
815a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
816it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
817GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
818is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
819
fe419ffc
RE
820* Changes in ARM configurations.
821
822Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
823configuration is fully multi-arch.
824
eb7cedd9
MK
825* New native configurations
826
fe419ffc 827ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 828x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 829AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 830Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 831
c9f63e6b
CV
832* New targets
833
834Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
835
9b4ff276
AC
836* OBSOLETE configurations and files
837
838Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
839been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
840configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
841permanently REMOVED.
842
843AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
844A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
845AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
846AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
847AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
848
b4ceaee6 849testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 850
e2caac18
AC
851* REMOVED configurations and files
852
853TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 854WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
855PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
856PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
857PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 858Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
859Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
860 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 861SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 862Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
863Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
864ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 865Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 866
c2a727fa
TT
867* Changes to command line processing
868
869The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
870for the inferior from gdb's command line.
871
467d8519
TT
872* Changes to key bindings
873
874There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
875
7072a954
AC
876*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
877
878Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
879
880Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
881corrupted.
882
883Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
884
885Numerous documentation fixes.
886
887Numerous testsuite fixes.
888
34f47bc4 889*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
890
891* New native configurations
892
893Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
894x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 895MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
896MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
897ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 898s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 899
bf64bfd6
AC
900* New targets
901
def90278 902Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 903CRIS cris-axis
55241689 904UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 905
17e78a56 906* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
907
908x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 909Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
910Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
911 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
912TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
913WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 914Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
915PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
916PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
917PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 918SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
919Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
920ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 921Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 922
17e78a56
AC
923stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
924kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
925
7fcca85b
AC
926Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
927been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
928configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
929permanently REMOVED.
930
a196c81c 931* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
932
933Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
934Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
935Pyramid pyramid-*-*
936ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
937Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 938ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 939
6d6b80e5 940* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 941
6d6b80e5 942GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
943sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
944present.
945
bf64bfd6
AC
946* Other news:
947
e23194cb
EZ
948* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
949
950* The MI enabled by default.
951
952The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
953revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
954engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
955using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
956which is now deprecated.
957
958* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
959
960GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
961main features are supported:
962
963 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
964
965 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
966 extension;
967
968 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
969
970 - a Pascal expression parser.
971
972However, some important features are not yet supported.
973
974 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
975
976 - there are some problems with boolean types;
977
978 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
979 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
980
981 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
982
983 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
984
985* Changes in completion.
986
987Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
988to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
989users expect at the shell prompt.
990
991Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
992`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
993program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
994files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
995be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
996considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
997name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
998
999`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1000
1001* New platform-independent commands:
1002
1003It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1004hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1005documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1006
1007* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1008
d7275149
MK
1009Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1010revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1011many threads as your system allows you to have.
1012
e23194cb
EZ
1013Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1014
d7275149
MK
1015Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1016multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1017
1018* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1019
1020Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1021
e23194cb
EZ
1022GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1023debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1024supported.)
1025
1026* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1027
1028Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1029breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1030implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1031put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1032and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1033registers.
1034
1035The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1036debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1037watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1038
1039* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1040
1041New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1042the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1043
1044New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1045display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1046IDT.
1047
1048New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1049from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1050New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1051a given linear address.
1052
1053GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1054program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1055which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1056
1057DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1058
6c56c069
EZ
1059It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1060
e23194cb
EZ
1061* Changes in documentation.
1062
1063All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1064Documentation License.
1065
1066Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1067manual.
1068
1069TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1070
1071Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1072manual.
1073
1074The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1075documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1076hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1077
5d6640b1
AC
1078* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1079
1080The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1081``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1082contents of this file.
1083
1a1d8446
AC
1084* gdba.el deleted
1085
1086GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1087
9debab2f 1088*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1089
c63ce875
EZ
1090* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1091
1092Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1093programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1094displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1095greater level of detail.
1096
1097* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1098
1099It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1100bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1101on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1102written.
1103
1104* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1105
1106The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1107necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1108machines ``out of the box''.
1109
1110The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1111possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1112signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1113would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1114interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1115
1116It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1117standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1118even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1119and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1120terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1121
1122The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1123enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1124also works.
1125
1126DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1127GDB.
1128
1129It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1130directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1131times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1132breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1133
ed9a39eb
JM
1134* New native configurations
1135
1136ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1137PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1138
7a292a7a
SS
1139* New targets
1140
96baa820 1141Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1142x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1143PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1144TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1145
085dd6e6
JM
1146* OBSOLETE configurations
1147
1148Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1149Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1150Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1151ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1152Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1153
9debab2f
AC
1154Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1155but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1156these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1157be permanently REMOVED.
1158
5330533d
SS
1159* Gould support removed
1160
1161Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1162
bc9e5bbf
AC
1163* New features for SVR4
1164
1165On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1166without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1167load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1168
1169* Many C++ enhancements
1170
1171C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1172in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1173
adf40b2e
JM
1174* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1175
1176A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1177sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1178with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1179``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1180
1181 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1182 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1183
43e526b9
JM
1184* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1185
1186A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1187expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1188instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1189
1190The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1191added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1192
96baa820
JM
1193* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1194
1195The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1196``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1197include ``set remote P-packet''.
1198
11cf8741
JM
1199* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1200
1201The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1202accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1203``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1204
7876dd43
DB
1205* ``apropos'' command added.
1206
1207The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1208documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1209try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1210
bc9e5bbf
AC
1211* New MI interface
1212
1213A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1214interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1215process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1216"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1217enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1218
1219 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1220
c906108c
SS
1221*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1222
1223* New native configurations
1224
1225HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1226HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1227M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1228
1229* New targets
1230
1231Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1232Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1233Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1234
1235* OBSOLETE configurations
1236
1237Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1238
1239Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1240but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1241these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1242be permanently REMOVED.
1243
1244* ANSI/ISO C
1245
1246As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1247buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1248containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1249use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1250available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1251configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1252information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1253already.
1254
1255* Readline 2.2
1256
1257GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1258
1259* set extension-language
1260
1261You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1262languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1263you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1264 set extension-language .c c++
1265The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1266and their associated languages.
1267
1268* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1269
1270When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1271you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1272PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1273
1274 set processor NAME
1275
1276sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1277following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1278
1279 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1280 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1281 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1282 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1283 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1284 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1285 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1286 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1287 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1288 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1289 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1290
1291At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1292special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1293registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1294only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1295
1296* HP-UX support
1297
1298Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1299more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1300library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1301support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1302for xdb and dbx commands.
1303
1304* Catchpoints
1305
1306HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1307generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1308to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1309
1310This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1311argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1312output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1313
1314* Debugging across forks
1315
1316On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1317in the inferior.
1318
1319* TUI
1320
1321HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1322it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1323configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1324
1325* GDB remote protocol additions
1326
1327A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1328Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1329fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1330allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1331
1332For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1333full 64-bit address. The command
1334
1335 set remoteaddresssize 32
1336
1337can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1338the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1339will be discarded.
1340
1341In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1342command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1343
1344 maint packet heythere
1345
1346sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1347disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1348time.
1349
1350The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1351target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1352downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1353
1354* Tracing can collect general expressions
1355
1356You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1357further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1358doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1359
1360* mask-address variable for Mips
1361
1362For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1363a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1364of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1365
1366* Higher serial baud rates
1367
1368GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1369230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1370to achieve all of these rates.)
1371
1372* i960 simulator
1373
1374The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1375builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1376
1377
1378*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1379
1380* New native configurations
1381
1382Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1383Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1384Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1385PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1386PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1387Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1388Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1389
1390* New targets
1391
1392Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1393Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1394Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1395Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1396MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1397MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1398MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1399Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1400Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1401Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1402NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1403
1404* New debugging protocols
1405
1406ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1407M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1408DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1409PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1410PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1411Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1412
1413* DWARF 2
1414
1415All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1416format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1417information.
1418
1419* Java frontend
1420
1421GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1422only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1423
1424* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1425
1426For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1427loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1428locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1429
1430* Live range splitting
1431
1432GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1433range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1434more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1435
1436* Hurd support
1437
1438GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1439updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1440
1441* ARM Thumb support
1442
1443GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1444instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1445instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1446accordingly.
1447
1448* MIPS16 support
1449
1450GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1451instruction set.
1452
1453* Overlay support
1454
1455GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1456linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1457will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1458control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1459additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1460in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1461
1462* info symbol
1463
1464The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1465the symbol at the specified address.
1466
1467* Trace support
1468
1469The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1470asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1471extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1472includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1473file tracepoint.c for more details.
1474
1475* MIPS simulator
1476
1477Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1478by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1479of most MIPS variants.
1480
1481* Sparc simulator
1482
1483Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1484by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1485Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1486
1487* set architecture
1488
1489For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1490basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1491architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1492the possible architectures.
1493
1494*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1495
1496* New native configurations
1497
1498Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1499M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1500PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1501PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1502PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1503RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1504
1505* New targets
1506
1507ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1508I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1509MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1510MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1511PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1512Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1513Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1514
1515* PowerPC simulator
1516
1517The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1518contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1519PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1520basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1521performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1522
1523* Solaris 2.5
1524
1525GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1526
1527* Windows 95/NT native
1528
1529GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1530To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1531which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1532Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1533ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1534
1535* dont-repeat command
1536
1537If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1538command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1539useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1540extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1541
1542* Send break instead of ^C
1543
1544The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1545rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1546GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1547
1548* Remote protocol timeout
1549
1550The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1551that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1552to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1553
1554* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1555
1556By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1557loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1558stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1559when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1560in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1561
1562Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1563/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1564automatically on hpux10.
1565
1566* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1567
1568Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1569
1570* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1571
1572When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1573may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1574the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1575every character. The default value is 1050.
1576
1577* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1578
1579If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1580a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1581replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1582details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1583remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1584to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1585
1586* Speedups for remote debugging
1587
1588GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1589the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1590and more efficient S-record downloading.
1591
1592* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1593
1594GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1595Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1596
1597*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1598
1599* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1600
1601The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1602can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1603
1604* Remote targets use caching
1605
1606Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1607remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1608it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1609debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1610off' turns the the data cache off.
1611
1612* Remote targets may have threads
1613
1614The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1615in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1616gdb/remote.c for details.
1617
1618* NetROM support
1619
1620If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1621support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1622acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1623write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1624support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1625another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1626sequence is something like
1627
1628 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1629 load <prog>
1630 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1631
1632* Macintosh host
1633
1634GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1635may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1636it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1637available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1638device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1639directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1640scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1641mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1642
1643* Autoconf
1644
1645GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1646but does simplify configuration and building.
1647
1648* hpux10
1649
1650GDB now supports hpux10.
1651
1652*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1653
1654* New native configurations
1655
1656x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1657x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1658NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1659Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1660
1661* New targets
1662
1663A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1664HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1665CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1666PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1667WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1668
1669* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1670
1671GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1672possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1673filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1674the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1675if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1676
1677* Arguments to user-defined commands
1678
1679User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1680Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1681trivial example:
1682define adder
1683 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1684
1685To execute the command use:
1686adder 1 2 3
1687
1688Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1689Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1690use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1691
1692* New `if' and `while' commands
1693
1694This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1695commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1696expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1697execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1698terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1699`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1700if the expression is zero.
1701
1702* Fortran source language mode
1703
1704GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1705Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1706variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1707with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1708Fortran compilers.
1709
1710* Better HPUX support
1711
1712Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1713running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1714processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1715for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1716that behavior do the following before running the program:
1717
1718 adb -w a.out
1719 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1720 control-d
1721
1722This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1723To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1724
1725 adb -w a.out
1726 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1727 control-d
1728
1729You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1730the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1731external linkage.
1732
1733GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1734HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1735
1736* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1737
1738You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1739commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1740current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1741"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1742associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1743configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1744
1745* New DOS host serial code
1746
1747This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1748no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1749a PC's serial port.
1750
1751*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1752
1753* New "complete" command
1754
1755This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1756were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1757
1758* Trailing space optional in prompt
1759
1760"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1761allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1762
1763* Breakpoint hit counts
1764
1765"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1766has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1767can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1768to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1769less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1770that breakpoint.
1771
1772* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1773
1774"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1775an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1776arrays actually contain only short strings.
1777
1778* Shared library breakpoints
1779
1780In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1781breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1782
1783* Hardware watchpoints
1784
1785There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1786targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1787
55241689 1788Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1789
1790* Annotations
1791
1792Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1793and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1794
1795* Improved Irix 5 support
1796
1797GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1798
1799* Improved HPPA support
1800
1801GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1802
1803* New native configurations
1804
1805Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1806HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1807Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1808RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1809
1810* New targets
1811
1812OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1813MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1814Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1815
1816* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1817
1818There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1819This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1820
1821* Fixes
1822
1823As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1824and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1825
1826*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1827
1828* Irix 5 is now supported
1829
1830* HPPA support
1831
1832GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1833to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1834GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1835of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1836can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1837
1838
1839*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1840
1841* User visible changes:
1842
1843* Remote Debugging
1844
1845The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1846target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1847debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1848integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1849debugging info for the mips target).
1850
1851* DEC Alpha native support
1852
1853GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1854debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1855work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1856Alpha-specific notes.
1857
1858* Preliminary thread implementation
1859
1860GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1861
1862* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1863
1864This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1865to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1866for details).
1867
1868* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1869
1870This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1871mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1872call methods, ...etc.
1873
1874*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1875
1876 * User visible changes:
1877
1878Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1879supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1880other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1881somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1882
1883Filename completion now works.
1884
1885When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1886arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1887addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1888
1889All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1890vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1891should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1892your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1893to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1894
1895 * DEC alpha support
1896
1897This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1898cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1899
1900
1901*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1902
1903 * Testsuite
1904
1905This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1906The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1907via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1908
1909 * C++ demangling
1910
1911'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1912emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1913Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1914disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1915use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1916
1917 * Simulators
1918
1919GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1920So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1921Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1922
1923 * New targets supported
1924
1925H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1926H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1927SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1928Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1929IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1930
1931Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1932version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1933GO32 memory extender.
1934
1935 * New remote protocols
1936
1937MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1938
1939 * New source languages supported
1940
1941This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1942used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1943into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1944
1945
1946*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1947
1948 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1949
1950GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1951version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1952University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1953compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1954format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1955(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1956
1957Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1958
1959 * Faster and better demangling
1960
1961We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1962demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1963character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1964only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1965This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1966increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1967symbol lookups.
1968
1969`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1970from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1971compiler does not actually implement.
1972
1973 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1974
1975In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1976inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1977recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1978very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1979The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1980circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1981fix.
1982
1983The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1984release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1985
1986 * Improved configure script
1987
1988The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1989you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1990host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1991done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1992
1993We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1994version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1995`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1996The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1997only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1998We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1999
2000 * Documentation improvements
2001
2002There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2003produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2004before submitting changes.
2005
2006The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2007M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2008`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2009you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2010a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2011
2012*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2013We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2014been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2015or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2016`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2017around this problem.
2018
2019 * New features
2020
2021GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2022the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2023`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2024the target program.
2025
2026The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2027how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2028
2029 * New native hosts supported
2030
2031HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2032386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2033
2034 * New targets supported
2035
2036AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2037
2038 * New file formats supported
2039
2040BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2041HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2042
2043 * Major bug fixes
2044
2045Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2046
2047We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2048printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2049
2050We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2051for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2052release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2053
2054You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2055will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2056
2057We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2058for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2059especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2060libraries.
2061
2062The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2063information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2064command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2065any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2066when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2067
2068 * Internal improvements
2069
2070GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2071debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2072
2073GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2074Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2075symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2076contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2077shared code that handles any of them.
2078
2079 * New command line options
2080
2081We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2082
2083 * Mmalloc licensing
2084
2085The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2086General Public License.
2087
2088*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2089
2090 * Host/native/target split
2091
2092GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2093hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2094target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2095local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2096ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2097
2098The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2099GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2100is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2101code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2102any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2103built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2104handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2105
2106GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2107It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2108plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2109
2110 * New hosts supported
2111
2112HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2113386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2114386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2115
2116 * New targets supported
2117
2118Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
211968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2120
2121 * New native hosts supported
2122
2123386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2124 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2125386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2126
2127 * New file formats supported
2128
2129BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2130supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2131format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2132
2133 * New commands
2134
2135`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2136`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2137These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2138
2139`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2140
2141You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2142scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2143prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2144executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2145
2146 * C++ improvements
2147
2148We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2149info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2150symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2151
2152Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2153
2154 * Major bug fixes
2155
2156The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2157fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2158by the compiler.
2159
2160We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2161support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2162
2163John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2164slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2165that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2166purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2167the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2168mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2169
2170Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2171about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2172completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2173we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2174
2175 * AMD 29k support
2176
2177A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2178specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2179calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2180usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2181in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2182
2183We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2184Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2185of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2186resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2187
2188 * Remote interfaces
2189
2190We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2191with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2192message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2193This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2194needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2195breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2196each instruction being stepped through.
2197
2198The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2199registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2200
2201There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2202find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2203Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2204processor with a serial port.
2205
2206 * Configuration
2207
2208Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2209`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2210supported, and what files each one uses.
2211
2212 * Library changes
2213
2214There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2215disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2216Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2217disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2218
2219The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2220Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2221can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2222grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2223
2224 * Documentation
2225
2226The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2227reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2228as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2229encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2230system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2231bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2232
2233And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2234
2235
2236*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2237
2238 * Better support for C++ function names
2239
2240GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2241names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2242(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2243single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2244Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2245
2246GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2247the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2248You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2249lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2250for the list of formats.
2251
2252 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2253
2254Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2255C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2256directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2257can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2258usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2259about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2260this problem.)
2261
2262 * New 'maintenance' command
2263
2264All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2265the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2266can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2267
2268 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2269 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2270 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2271 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2272 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2273 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2274
2275The following commands are new:
2276
2277 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2278 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2279 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2280
2281 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2282
2283We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2284(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2285be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2286read after argv processing.
2287
2288 * New hosts supported
2289
2290Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2291
55241689 2292GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2293
2294We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2295is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2296for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2297masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2298fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2299It costs extra.
2300
2301 * New targets supported
2302
2303Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2304
2305 * More smarts about finding #include files
2306
2307GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2308all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2309greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2310especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2311the one that contains your sources.
2312
2313We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2314breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2315try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2316
2317 * Interesting infernals change
2318
2319GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2320section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2321target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2322stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2323
2324 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2325
2326There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2327 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2328 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2329
2330See the ChangeLog for details.
2331
2332*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2333
2334 * New machines supported (host and target)
2335
2336IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2337
2338SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2339
2340 * New malloc package
2341
2342GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2343Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2344capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2345This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2346pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2347more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2348
2349 * info proc
2350
2351The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2352'help info proc' for details.
2353
2354 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2355
2356The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2357Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2358possible.
2359
2360 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2361
2362Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2363support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2364conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2365environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2366that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2367in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2368
2369 * Cross byte order fixes
2370
2371Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2372targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2373
2374 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2375
2376If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2377system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2378`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2379program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2380called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2381Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2382and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2383the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2384option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2385starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2386
2387You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2388the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2389information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2390slower, but makes future operations faster.
2391
2392The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2393build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2394A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2395use is:
2396
2397 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2398
2399The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2400It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2401shared across multiple host platforms.
2402
2403 * longjmp() handling
2404
2405GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2406siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2407all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2408platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2409
2410 * Solaris 2.0
2411
2412Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2413this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2414reading symbols.
2415
2416 * Bug fixes
2417
2418As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2419People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2420crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2421
2422*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2423
2424 * New machines supported (host and target)
2425
2426SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2427 (except core files)
2428BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2429Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2430
2431 * New machines supported (target)
2432
2433AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2434
2435 * C++ support
2436
2437GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2438The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2439per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2440
2441GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2442`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2443extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2444good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2445will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2446released.
2447
2448 * New features for SVR4
2449
2450GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2451shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2452only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2453
2454The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2455on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2456it prints the address mappings of the process.
2457
2458If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2459bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2460
2461 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2462
2463Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2464now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2465skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2466make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2467same code linked statically.
2468
2469 * New Getopt
2470
2471GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2472version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2473continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2474Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2475added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2476future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2477
2478 * Bugs fixed
2479
2480The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2481Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2482See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2483
2484
2485*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2486
2487 * New machines supported (host and target)
2488
2489Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2490NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2491Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2492
2493 * Almost SCO Unix support
2494
2495We had hoped to support:
2496SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2497(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2498that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2499about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2500
2501 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2502
2503GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2504debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2505is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2506send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2507reqired (if any).
2508
2509 * New Readline
2510
2511GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2512is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2513required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2514
2515 * Bugs fixed
2516
2517The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2518Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2519See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2520
2521 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2522
2523GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2524supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2525symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2526
2527Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2528mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2529debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2530mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2531version 2.
2532
2533Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2534really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2535line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2536variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2537situation somewhat.
2538
2539When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2540However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2541methods.
2542
2543We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2544DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2545encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2546
2547
2548*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2549
2550 * Improved configuration
2551
2552Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2553Porting BFD is simpler.
2554
2555 * Stepping improved
2556
2557The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2558of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2559in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2560function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2561
2562 * Bug fixing
2563
2564Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2565
2566 * New host supported (not target)
2567
2568Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2569
2570
2571*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2572
2573 * Multiple source language support
2574
2575GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2576It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2577and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2578language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2579You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2580`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2581
2582 * GDB and Modula-2
2583
2584GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2585currently under development at the State University of New York at
2586Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2587continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2588
2589Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2590debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2591symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2592
2593There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2594in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2595
2596 * set write on/off
2597
2598GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2599a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2600the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2601by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2602effect immediately.
2603
2604 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2605
2606When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2607shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2608The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2609examining core files.
2610
2611 * set listsize
2612
2613You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2614The default is 10.
2615
2616 * New machines supported (host and target)
2617
2618SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2619Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2620Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2621
2622 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2623
2624IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2625
2626 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2627
2628AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2629AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2630Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2631
2632 * New remote interfaces
2633
2634AMD 29000 Adapt
2635AMD 29000 Minimon
2636
2637
2638*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2639
2640 * New Facilities
2641
2642Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2643
2644Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2645target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2646is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2647remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2648remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2649also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2650using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2651stub on the target system.
2652
2653New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2654
2655GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2656library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2657object file types such as a.out and coff.
2658
2659There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2660refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2661
2662
2663 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2664
2665All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2666by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2667
2668For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2669``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2670Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2671
2672What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2673print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2674will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2675all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2676
2677confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2678 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2679 it is already running. Default is ON.
2680
2681editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2682 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2683 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2684 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2685 Default is ON.
2686
2687history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2688 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2689 or the value of the environment variable
2690 GDBHISTFILE.
2691
2692history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2693 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2694 HISTSIZE.
2695
2696history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2697 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2698 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2699
2700history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2701 history expansion will be performed on
2702 command line input. The default is OFF.
2703
2704radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2705 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2706 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2707
2708height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2709 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2710 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2711 variable TERM.
2712
2713width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2714 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2715 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2716 variable TERM.
2717
2718Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2719``set width'' instead.
2720
2721print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2722 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2723 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2724 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2725
2726print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2727 is OFF.
2728
2729print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2730 "raw" form if off.
2731
2732print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2733 like instructions.
2734
2735print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2736
2737
2738 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2739
2740The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2741new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2742are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2743window.
2744
2745
2746 * Support for Shared Libraries
2747
2748GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2749Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2750before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2751happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2752At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2753from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2754shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2755It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2756
2757sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2758 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2759 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2760
2761info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2762
2763
2764 * Watchpoints
2765
2766A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2767expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2768tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2769quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2770problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2771more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2772
2773watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2774
2775info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2776
2777delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2778disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2779enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2780
2781
2782 * C++ multiple inheritance
2783
2784When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2785for C++ programs.
2786
2787 * C++ exception handling
2788
2789Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2790ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2791the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2792handler's context).
2793
2794catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2795 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2796 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2797
2798info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2799 current stack frame.
2800
2801
2802 * Minor command changes
2803
2804The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2805command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2806is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2807
2808The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2809at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2810frames without printing.
2811
2812 * New directory command
2813
2814'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2815The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2816about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2817with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2818find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2819
2820 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2821
2822For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2823for more details.
2824
2825GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2826two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2827Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2828where the program that you are debugging will run.