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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
3b2f13ff 4*** Changes since GDB 7.9
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5
6* GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
7 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
8 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
9 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
10 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
11 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
12 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3b2f13ff 13
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14* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
15 cpu information :
16 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
17
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18* GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
19 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
20 remote serial I/O.
21
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22* The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
23 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
24 and may include things like its command line arguments.
25
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26* The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
27 is now available on all platforms.
28
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29* Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
30 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
31 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
32 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
33 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
34 backward compatibility.
35
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36* The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
37 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
38 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
39 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
40
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41* GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
42 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
43 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
44 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
45 packets" below.
46
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47* The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
48
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49* GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
50
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51* Python Scripting
52
53 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
54 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
55 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
d11916aa 56 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
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57 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
58 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
2ce1cdbf 59 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
3a8b707a 60
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61* New commands
62
63maint print symbol-cache
64 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
65
66maint print symbol-cache-statistics
67 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
68
69maint flush-symbol-cache
70 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
71
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72record btrace bts
73record bts
74 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
75
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76* New options
77
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78set max-completions
79show max-completions
80 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
81 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
82 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
83 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
84
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85maint set symbol-cache-size
86maint show symbol-cache-size
87 Control the size of the symbol cache.
88
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89set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
90 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
91 BTS format.
92 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
93 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
94
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95* The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
96 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
97
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98* Python/Guile scripting
99
100 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
101 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
102
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103* New remote packets
104
105qXfer:btrace-conf:read
106 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
107
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108Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
109 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
110
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111swbreak stop reason
112 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
113 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
114 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
115 mode operation.
116
117hwbreak stop reason
118 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
119 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
120
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121vFile:fstat:
122 Return information about files on the remote system.
123
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124qXfer:exec-file:read
125 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
126 create a process running on the remote system.
127
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128* The info record command now shows the recording format and the
129 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
130 the btrace record target.
131 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
132
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133* GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
134 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
135
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136* GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
137 targets.
138
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139* Removed command line options
140
141-xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
142
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143* Removed targets and native configurations
144
145HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
146Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
147
3b2f13ff 148*** Changes in GDB 7.9
919b9a93 149
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150* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
151
5f3b99cf 152* Python Scripting
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153
154 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
155 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
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156 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
157 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
a0be3e44 158 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
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159 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
160 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
86e4ed39 161 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
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162 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
163 selecting a new file to debug.
02be9a71 164 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
6dddd6a5 165 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
5f3b99cf 166
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167 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
168 inferior.
169
170 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
171 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
172 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
173 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
174
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175* New Python-based convenience functions:
176
177 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
178 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
179 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
180 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
181
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182* GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
183 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
184 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
185 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
186 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
187 interface with this new feature are:
188
189 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
190 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
191
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192* New commands
193
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194demangle [-l language] [--] name
195 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
196 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
197 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
198 as "maint demangler-warning".
199
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200queue-signal signal-name-or-number
201 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
202
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203add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
204 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
205 scripts.
206
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207maint print user-registers
208 List all currently available "user" registers.
209
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210compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
211 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
212 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
213
214compile file [-r|-raw] filename
215 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
216 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
217 provided.
218
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219* On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
220 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
221 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
222 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
223 at resume time.
224
225* Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
226 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
227 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
228 switched threads meanwhile.
229
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230* "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
231
232 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
233 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
234 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
235 is now the default mode.
236
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237* New options
238
239set debug symbol-lookup
240show debug symbol-lookup
241 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
242
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243* MI changes
244
245 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
246 inferiors that have exited.
247
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248* New targets
249
250MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
251
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252* Removed targets
253
254Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
255
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256Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
257SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
258SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
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259VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
260VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3831839c 261
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262* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
263 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
264 its alias "share", instead.
265
919b9a93 266*** Changes in GDB 7.8
e9475ead 267
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268* New command line options
269
270-D data-directory
271 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
272
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273* GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
274 as specified in ISO C99.
275
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276* The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
277 with or without disassembly.
b7bba001 278
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279* Guile scripting
280
281 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
282 available is determined at configure time.
283 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
284 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
285
286* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
287
288guile [code]
289gu [code]
290 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
291
292guile-repl
293gr
294 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
295
296info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
297 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
298
299* The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
300 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
301
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302* New options
303
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304set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
305show print symbol-loading
306 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
307 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
308 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
309 becomes less useful.
310
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311set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
312show guile print-stack
313 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
314
315set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
316show auto-load guile-scripts
317 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
318
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319maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
320maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
321 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
322 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
323 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
324 usage of this option.
325
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326set auto-connect-native-target
327
328 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
329 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
330 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
331
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332set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
333show record btrace replay-memory-access
334 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
335
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336maint set target-async (on|off)
337maint show target-async
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338 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
339 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
329ea579 340 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
5784b3ca 341 occurring only in synchronous mode.
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342
343set mi-async (on|off)
344show mi-async
345 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
346 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
347
348* "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
349 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
350
351* Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
352 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
353 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
354 "set target-async on" command.
355
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356* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
357
358 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
359 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
360 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
361 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
362 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
363
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364* The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
365 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
366 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
367
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368* The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
369 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
370 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
371 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
372 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
373 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
374 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
375
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376* The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
377 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
378
066ce621 379* The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
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380 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
381 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
066ce621 382
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383* The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
384 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
385 memory or registers.
386
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387* The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
388
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389* The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
390 remote. It now works with all targets.
391
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392* All native targets are now consistently called "native".
393 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
394 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
395 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
396 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
397 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
398 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
399 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
400 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
401 target-stack".
402
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403* The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
404 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
405 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
406
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407* GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
408
409* Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
410 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
411 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
412
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413* New remote packets
414
415qXfer:btrace:read's annex
416 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
417 branch trace incrementally.
418
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419* Python Scripting
420
421 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
422 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
423 available.
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424 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
425 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
426 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
427 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
428 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
f7bd0f78 429
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430* New targets
431PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
432
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433* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
434 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
435 its alias "share", instead.
436
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437* The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
438 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
439 instead.
440
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441* MI changes
442
443 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
444 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
445 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
446 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
447 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
448 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
449 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
450 commands and CLI execution commands.
451
b7bba001 452*** Changes in GDB 7.7
2d450646 453
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454* Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
455 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
456 recording has been added.
457
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458* GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
459
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460* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
461 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
462
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463* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
464 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
465 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
466 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
467 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
468 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
469 "void".
470
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471* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
472
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473* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
474
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475* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
476 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
477 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
478 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
479
480 (gdb) p $rax
481 $1 = <not saved>
482
483 (gdb) info registers rax
484 rax <not saved>
485
486 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
487 "*value not available*".
488
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489* New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
490 to binaries.
491
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492* Python scripting
493
494 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
f76c27b5 495 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
bc79de95 496 ** Line tables representation has been added.
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497 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
498 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
c0d48811 499 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1e611234 500
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501* New targets
502
503Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
504Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 505Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 506
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507* Removed native configurations
508
509Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
510been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
511
512arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
513i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
514i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
515i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
516m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
517sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
518vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
519
bd712aed 520* New commands:
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521catch rethrow
522 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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523maint check-psymtabs
524 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
525maint check-symtabs
526 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
527maint expand-symtabs
528 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 529
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530show configuration
531 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
532
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533maint set|show per-command
534maint set|show per-command space
535maint set|show per-command time
536maint set|show per-command symtab
537 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
538
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539remove-symbol-file FILENAME
540remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
541 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
542 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
543 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
544
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545info exceptions
546info exceptions REGEXP
547 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
548 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
549 are listed.
550
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551* New options
552
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553set debug symfile off|on
554show debug symfile
555 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
556 symbol tables within those files
557
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558set print raw frame-arguments
559show print raw frame-arguments
560 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
561 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
562
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563set remote trace-status-packet
564show remote trace-status-packet
565 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
566
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567set debug nios2
568show debug nios2
569 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
570
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571set range-stepping
572show range-stepping
573 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
574
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575set startup-with-shell
576show startup-with-shell
577 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
578 directly.
579
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580set code-cache
581show code-cache
582 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
583 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
584
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585* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
586 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
587 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
588 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
589 "set height 0".
590
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591* The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
592 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
593 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
594
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595* New command-line options
596--configuration
597 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
598
d0353e76
YQ
599* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
600 buffer in Common Trace Format.
601
b292c783
JK
602* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
603 GDB command gcore.
604
6e72ca20
TT
605* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
606
b340913d
TT
607* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
608 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
609
610* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
611 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
612
0c557179
SDJ
613* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
614 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
615 due to an uncaught signal.
616
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YQ
617* MI changes
618
403cb6b1 619 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
4e35e808
JB
620 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
621 command, which should contain "language-option".
403cb6b1 622
6b7cbff1
JB
623 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
624 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
625
2ea126fa
JB
626 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
627 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
628 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
629 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
630 "undefined-command-error-code".
631
d0353e76
YQ
632 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
633 Trace Format now.
634
c5867ab6
HZ
635 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
636
c898adb7
YQ
637 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
638 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
639 are displayed.
640
dc673c81
YQ
641 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
642 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
643
6211c335
YQ
644 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
645 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
646 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
647
5713b9b5
JB
648 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
649 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
650 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
72bfa06c
JB
651 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
652 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
653 "exec-run-start-option".
5713b9b5 654
40555925
JB
655 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
656 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
657
58d06528
JB
658 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
659 the new "info exceptions" command.
660
0201faac
JB
661* New system-wide configuration scripts
662 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
663 configuration scripts for the following systems:
664 ** ElinOS
665 ** Wind River Linux
666
c1e36e3e
PA
667* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
668 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
669 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
670 below.
671
28a93511
YQ
672* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
673 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
674
4ac33720
UW
675* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
676 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
677 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
678
c1e36e3e
PA
679* New remote packets
680
681vCont;r
682
683 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
684 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
685 involvemement at each single-step.
686
7f91dbec
GB
687qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
688 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
689 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
690 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
691 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
692 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
693 speedup.
694
c2d6af84
PA
695* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
696
697 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
698 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
699
28a93511
YQ
700 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
701 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
702 trace state variables.
703
7a60ad40
YQ
704 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
705 target.
706
6fbe845e
AB
707* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
708 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
709
9058cc3a
TG
710* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
711
0d12017b
JB
712* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
713 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
714 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
715 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
716
2d450646 717*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 718
59ea5688
MM
719* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
720 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
721 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
722 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
723
724set|show record full insn-number-max
725set|show record full stop-at-limit
726set|show record full memory-query
727
728* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
729 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
730 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
731 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
732 This new recording method can be enabled using:
733
734record btrace
735
736 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
737 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
738
739* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
740 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
741 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
742
743record instruction-history prints the execution history at
744 instruction granularity
745
746record function-call-history prints the execution history at
747 function granularity
748
543bf33d
AT
749* New native configurations
750
51d66578 751ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 752FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 753x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 754Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 755
249729c4
JB
756* New targets
757
51d66578
MS
758ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
759ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 760Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 761x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 762Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 763
e64e0392
DE
764* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
765 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
766 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
767 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
768 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
769 --data-directory command-line option.
770
07540c15
DE
771* New command line options:
772
773-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
774 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
775
e93a8774
TT
776* Removed command line options
777
778-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
779 Emacs.
780
53342f27
TT
781* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
782 type formatting.
783
451b7c33
TT
784* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
785
a72c3253
DE
786* Python scripting
787
788 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
789
d7de8e3c
TT
790 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
791
18a9fc12
TT
792 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
793
9a27f2c6
PK
794 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
795
bea883fd
SCR
796 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
797 of architecture in the Python API.
798
799 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
800 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
801
a72c3253
DE
802* New Python-based convenience functions:
803
804 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
805 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
806 ** $_strlen(str)
807 ** $_regex(str, regex)
808
f3c8a52a
JK
809* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
810 given an argument.
811
1605ef26
TT
812* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
813 default for GCC since November 2000.
814
504b36fd
YQ
815* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
816
f2a8bc8a
YQ
817* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
818 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
819
23a80689
JB
820* New configure options
821
822--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
823 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
824 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
825 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
826 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
827 options allow the user to override that default.
393fd4c3
YQ
828--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
829 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
830 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 831
d6b28940
TT
832* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
833
ab04a2af
TT
834catch signal
835 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
836 conditions to be attached.
837
d6b28940
TT
838maint info bfds
839 List the BFDs known to GDB.
840
8315665e
YPK
841python-interactive [command]
842pi [command]
843 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
844 and print the result of expressions.
845
846py [command]
847 "py" is a new alias for "python".
848
18a9fc12
TT
849enable type-printer [name]...
850disable type-printer [name]...
851 Enable or disable type printers.
852
aa9259cc
TS
853* Removed commands
854
855 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
856 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
857 instead.
858
53342f27
TT
859* New options
860
861set print type methods (on|off)
862show print type methods
863 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
864 The default is to show them.
865
866set print type typedefs (on|off)
867show print type typedefs
868 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
869 The default is to show them.
870
1b56eb55
JK
871set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
872show filename-display
873 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
874 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
875
e9f1758d
PA
876set trace-buffer-size
877show trace-buffer-size
878 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
879
a46c1e42
PA
880set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
881show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
882 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
883
be9a8770
PA
884set debug aarch64
885show debug aarch64
886 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
887 The default is off.
888
889set debug coff-pe-read
890show debug coff-pe-read
891 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
892 exported symbols.
893
894set debug mach-o
895show debug mach-o
896 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
897 processing.
898
899set debug notification
900show debug notification
901 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
902
5b9afe8a
YQ
903* MI changes
904
905 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
906 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
907 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
908 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
134a2066
YQ
909 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
910 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
911 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
82a90ccf
YQ
912 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
913 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
8de0566d
YQ
914 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
915 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 916 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 917 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
62747a60
TT
918 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
919 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3fa7bf06
MG
920 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
921 library load/unload events.
f2a8bc8a
YQ
922 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
923 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
924 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
f5911ea1
HAQ
925 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
926 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
927 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
ec83d211
JK
928 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
929 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 930
608e2dbb
TT
931* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
932 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
933 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
934 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
935
f6f899bf
HAQ
936* New remote packets
937
938QTBuffer:size
939 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
940 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
941
10782d74
MM
942Qbtrace:bts
943 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
944 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
945 qSupported query.
946
947Qbtrace:off
948 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
949 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
950
951qXfer:btrace:read
952 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
953 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
954
80c8d323 955*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 956
1b3371b1
L
957* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
958 for more x32 ABI info.
959
d0e64392
MR
960* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
961
4cc0665f
MR
962* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
963
85d4a676
SS
964* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
965 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
966 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
967 "info os files" lists file descriptors
968 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
969 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
970 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
971 "info os msg" lists message queues
972 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
973
55aa24fb
SDJ
974* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
975 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
976 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
977 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
978 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
979 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
980
72508ac0
PO
981* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
982 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
983 record/replay support.
984
16899756
DE
985* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
986
4795f398
DE
987* Python scripting
988
7d74f244
DE
989 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
990 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
991
4795f398
DE
992 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
993
50897289
TT
994 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
995 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
996
64e7d9dd
TT
997 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
998
999 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1000 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1001
f0823d2c
TT
1002 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1003 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1004 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1005 symbol's value.
1006
7b282c5a
SCR
1007 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1008 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1009
a20ee7a4
SCR
1010 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1011 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1012 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1013
7efc75aa
SCR
1014 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1015 object associated with a PC value.
1016
ee0bf529
SCR
1017 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1018 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1019
a766d390
DE
1020* Go language support.
1021 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1022 language.
1023
e0f9f062
DE
1024* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1025 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1026
217bff3e
JK
1027* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1028 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1029
cafec441
TT
1030* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1031 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1032 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1033 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1034 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1035 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
1036
4aac40c8
TT
1037* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1038 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1039 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1040 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1041
d99bd577
UW
1042* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1043 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1044
53fe1783
GB
1045* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1046 since December 2007.
1047
e41eec66
JB
1048* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1049 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1050 command does. For instance:
1051
1052 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1053
1054 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1055 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1056 created, using the "condition" command.
1057
5808517f
YQ
1058* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1059 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1060
481860b3
GB
1061* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1062
1063* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1064 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1065 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
1066 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1067 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1068 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1069 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1070 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 1071
156942c7
DE
1072 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1073 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1074 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1075 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1076 the .gdb_index section.
1077
927fbba6
JB
1078* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1079
20388dd6
YQ
1080* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1081 target.
1082
f3e0e960
SS
1083* MI changes
1084
1085 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1086
37ce89eb
SS
1087 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1088
edcc5120
TT
1089* New commands
1090
e615022a
DE
1091 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1092 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1093 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1094
edcc5120
TT
1095 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1096 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1097
816338b5
SS
1098 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1099 several hits.
1100
57651221 1101 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
1102 C++ and Java objects.
1103
06fc020f 1104 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
6ea71545 1105 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
06fc020f
SCR
1106 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1107 configured with '--with-python'.
1108
bf88dd68
JK
1109 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1110 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1111 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1112 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1113 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1114 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1115 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1116
1117 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1118 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1119 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1120 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1121
e7e0cddf
SS
1122 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1123 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1124 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1125 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1126
9cb709b6
TT
1127 ** "set print symbol"
1128 "show print symbol"
1129 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1130 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1131 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1132
2d4c29c5
TS
1133* Deprecated commands
1134
1135 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1136 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1137
a58b110a
KB
1138* New targets
1139
1140Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 1141HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 1142
72895ff6
LM
1143* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1144 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1145 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1146 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1147 evaluates to true.
1148
1149* New options
1150
4cc0665f
MR
1151set mips compression
1152show mips compression
1153 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1154 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1155 mips16
1156 micromips
1157 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1158
72895ff6
LM
1159set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1160show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 1161 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
1162 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1163 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
1164 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1165 target.
1166
bf88dd68
JK
1167set auto-load off
1168 Disable auto-loading globally.
1169
1170show auto-load
1171 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1172
1173set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1174show auto-load gdb-scripts
1175 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1176
1177set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1178show auto-load python-scripts
1179 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1180
1181set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1182show auto-load local-gdbinit
1183 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1184
1185set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1186show auto-load libthread-db
1187 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1188
7349ff92 1189set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 1190show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
1191 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1192 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1193 of the directories listed by this option.
1194 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1195
bccbefd2
JK
1196set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1197show auto-load safe-path
1198 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1199 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1200
4dc84fd1
JK
1201set debug auto-load on|off
1202show debug auto-load
1203 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1204
d3ce09f5 1205set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 1206show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
1207 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1208 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1209 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1210 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
1211
1212set dprintf-function <expr>
1213show dprintf-function
1214set dprintf-channel <expr>
1215show dprintf-channel
1216 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1217 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1218
d3ce09f5
SS
1219set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1220show disconnected-dprintf
1221 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1222 after GDB disconnects.
1223
6dea1fbd
JK
1224* New configure options
1225
7349ff92
JK
1226--with-auto-load-dir
1227 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
1228 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1229 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1230 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1231 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 1232
6dea1fbd
JK
1233--with-auto-load-safe-path
1234 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 1235 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
1236
1237--without-auto-load-safe-path
1238 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1239 security feature.
1240
72895ff6
LM
1241* New remote packets
1242
74c48cbb
PA
1243z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1244
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LM
1245 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1246 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1247 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1248 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1249
9b224c5e
PA
1250QProgramSignals:
1251
1252 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1253 program without GDB involvement.
1254
8320cc4f
JK
1255* New command line options
1256
1257--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1258 before loading inferior.
1259--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1260 execute it before loading inferior.
1261
8837a20f
JB
1262*** Changes in GDB 7.4
1263
f8eba3c6
TT
1264* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1265 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1266 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1267 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1268 inferior changes.
1269
1bfeeb0f
JL
1270* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1271 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1272
480a3f21
PW
1273* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1274 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1275 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1276 target hardware watchpoint.
1277
1278 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1279 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1280 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1281 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1282
3a7bf607
PM
1283* Python scripting
1284
32d1c362 1285 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 1286 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
1287 existing one.
1288
3a7bf607 1289 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
1290 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1291 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1292 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1293 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1294 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 1295
baacfb07 1296 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 1297 Python API.
713389e0 1298
fa3a4f15
PM
1299 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1300 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 1301 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
1302 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1303 corresponding value.
1304
5e239b84
PM
1305 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1306 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1307 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1308 on GDB start-up.
1309
9df2fbc4
PM
1310 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1311 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1312 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1313 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1314
457e09f0
DE
1315 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1316
6839b47f
KP
1317 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1318 "gdb.breakpoints".
1319
cc72b2a2
KP
1320 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1321 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1322 available in the CLI.
1323
84ad80e6
PK
1324 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1325 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1326 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1327 "some_type.items()".
1328
20c168b5
KP
1329 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1330 new object file.
1331
03c3051a
PK
1332 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1333 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1334 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1335 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1336 any anonymous fields.
1337
7376e450
TT
1338* MI changes
1339
1340 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1341 "solib-event".
1342
1343 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1344 "=breakpoint-modified".
1345
1346 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1347
98a5dd13
DE
1348* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1349 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1350 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1351 lives.
1352
1353 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1354 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1355 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1356 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1357 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1358
1359 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1360 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1361
478aac75
DE
1362* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1363 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1364 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1365 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1366 use this option to specify where to find it.
1367
9c06b0b4
TJB
1368* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1369 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1370 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1371 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1372 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1373 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1374 section in the user manual for more details.
1375
03f2bd59
JK
1376* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1377 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1378 become available after that.
1379
71eba9c2 1380* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 1381
2bda9cc5
JK
1382* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1383 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1384 gcc version 4.7.
1385
ed59ded5
DE
1386* New commands
1387
1388!SHELL COMMAND
1389 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1390 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1391
9c06b0b4
TJB
1392* Changed commands
1393
1394watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1395 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1396 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1397
dbaefcf7
DE
1398info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1399 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1400 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1401
71eba9c2 1402info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1403 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1404 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1405 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1406 name starts with a hyphen.
1407
3065dfb6
SS
1408collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1409 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1410 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1411 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1412 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1413 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1414 number of bytes that will be collected.
1415
f196051f
SS
1416tstart [NOTES]
1417 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1418 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1419 setting the variable trace-notes.
1420
1421tstop [NOTES]
1422 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1423 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1424 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1425 trace-stop-notes.
1426
d248b706
KY
1427* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1428 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1429 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1430 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1431 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1432 is running.
1433
405f8e94
SS
1434* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1435 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1436 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1437
2bda9cc5
JK
1438* New options
1439
45cfd468
DE
1440set debug dwarf2-read
1441show debug dwarf2-read
1442 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1443 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1444
1445set debug symtab-create
1446show debug symtab-create
1447 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1448 creation. The default is off.
1449
baacfb07
PM
1450set extended-prompt
1451show extended-prompt
1452 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1453 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1454 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1455 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1456 prompt is displayed.
1457
2bda9cc5
JK
1458set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1459show print entry-values
1460 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1461 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1462 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1463
1464set debug entry-values
1465show debug entry-values
1466 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1467 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1468
c011a4f4
DE
1469set basenames-may-differ
1470show basenames-may-differ
1471 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1472 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1473 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1474 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1475 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1476 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1477 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1478 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1479
f196051f
SS
1480set trace-user
1481show trace-user
1482set trace-notes
1483show trace-notes
1484 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1485 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1486 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1487 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1488
1489set trace-stop-notes
1490show trace-stop-notes
1491 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1492 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1493 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1494 started by someone else.
1495
d248b706
KY
1496* New remote packets
1497
1498QTEnable
1499
1500 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1501
1502QTDisable
1503
1504 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1505
f196051f
SS
1506QTNotes
1507
1508 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1509
1510qTP
1511
1512 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1513
405f8e94
SS
1514qTMinFTPILen
1515
1516 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1517 be placed.
1518
1a532630
PP
1519* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1520 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1521
11315641
YQ
1522* New targets
1523
1524Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1525
87326c78
DD
1526* New Simulators
1527
1528Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1529
e8d56f18
JB
1530*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1531
1532* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1533
d6e00af6 1534*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 1535
60f98dde
MS
1536* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1537 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1538 matches the given regular expression.
1539
eee5b35e
DD
1540* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1541
b716877b
AB
1542* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1543 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1544
aae1c79a
DE
1545* New command line options
1546
1547-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1548 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1549
a86caf66
DE
1550* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1551 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1552
99e7ae30
DE
1553* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1554 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1555 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1556
4694da01
TT
1557* GDB now understands thread names.
1558
1559 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1560 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1561
1562 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1563 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1564
f4b8a18d
KW
1565* OpenCL C
1566 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1567 has been integrated into GDB.
1568
585d1eb8
PM
1569* Python scripting
1570
da5d4055
PM
1571 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1572 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1573 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1574
9a6f1302
PM
1575 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1576 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1577 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1578 and allows for more dynamic content.
1579
29703da4
PM
1580 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1581 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1582 have an is_valid method.
1583
350c6c65
PM
1584 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1585 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1586 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1587
6e6fbe60
DE
1588 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1589
585d1eb8
PM
1590 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1591 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1592 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1593 that function like so:
1594
1595 result = some_value (10,20)
1596
0e3509db
DE
1597 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1598 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1599 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1600
7b51bc51
DE
1601 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1602 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1603 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1604 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1605 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1606
1607 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1608 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1609
99e7ae30
DE
1610 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1611
d8e22779
TT
1612 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1613 selected thread.
1614
4694da01
TT
1615 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1616 holds the thread's name.
1617
505500db
SW
1618 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1619 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1620 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1621 The following events are currently supported:
1622 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1623 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1624 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1625
def98928
TT
1626* C++ Improvements:
1627
1628 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1629 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1630
1631 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1632
1633 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1634 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1635 was added to GCC 4.5.
1636
66cb8159
TT
1637 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1638 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1639 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1640 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1641 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1642 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1643
4aac0db7
UW
1644* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1645 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1646 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1647 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1648 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1649
283e6a52
TT
1650* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1651 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1652 execution to a label.
1653
1654* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1655 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1656 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1657 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1658
b56df873 1659* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1660 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1661 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1662 of scope.
1663
ae53ffa4
PA
1664* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1665
1666 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1667 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1668 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1669 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1670 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1671 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1672
1673 (gdb) info threads
1674 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1675
1676 While now you see this:
1677
1678 (gdb) info threads
1679 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1680
1681 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1682 dumps.
1683
1684 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1685 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1686 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1687 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1688
f1310107
TJB
1689* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1690 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1691 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1692 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1693 section in the user manual for more details.
1694
248c9dbc
JB
1695* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1696
1aee7009
JB
1697 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1698 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1699
eb826dc6
MF
1700 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1701
44603653
JB
1702* New native configurations
1703
1704ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1705
91021223
MF
1706* New targets:
1707
1708Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1709
6e1bb179
JB
1710* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1711 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1712 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1713 in the GDB user manual.
1714
50c97f38
TT
1715* Guile support was removed.
1716
448a92bf
MF
1717* New features in the GNU simulator
1718
1719 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1720
66ee2731
MF
1721 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1722
76b8507d 1723*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1724
ba25b921
PA
1725* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1726
1727 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1728 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1729 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1730 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1731 was always disabled for such configurations.
1732
4656f5c6
SW
1733* C++ Improvements:
1734
1735 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1736
1737 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1738 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1739 For example:
1740 namespace A
1741 {
1742 class B { };
1743 void foo (B) { }
1744 }
1745 ...
1746 A::B b
1747 foo(b)
1748 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1749 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1750 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1751
1752 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1753
1754 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1755 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1756 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1757 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1758 entry.
1759 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1760 mentioned flavors of operators.
1761
254e6b9e
DE
1762 ** static const class members
1763
1764 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1765 class definition has been fixed.
1766
711e434b
PM
1767* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1768
1769 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1770 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1771 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1772 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1773 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1774 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1775
0fb4aa4b
PA
1776* Static tracepoints
1777
1778 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1779 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1780 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1781 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1782 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1783 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1784 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1785 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1786 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1787 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1788 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1789 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1790 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1791 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1792 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1793 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1794 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1795 the "New remote packets" section below.
1796
ca11e899
SS
1797* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1798
1799 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1800 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1801 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1802 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1803
1804* Observer mode
1805
1806 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1807 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1808 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1809 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1810 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1811 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1812 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1813
1814* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1815 current thread.
1816
711e434b
PM
1817* New remote packets
1818
1819qGetTIBAddr
1820
1821 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1822
dde08ee1
PA
1823qRelocInsn
1824
1825 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1826 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1827 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1828 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1829 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1830 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1831
0fb4aa4b
PA
1832qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1833
1834 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1835
1836qTSTMat
1837
1838 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1839 program.
1840
1841qXfer:statictrace:read
1842
1843 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1844 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1845 to gdb's qSupported query.
1846
ca11e899
SS
1847QAllow
1848
1849 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1850
1851QTDPsrc
1852
1853 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1854 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1855
3f7b2faa
DE
1856* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1857 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1858 a directory.
1859
d337e9f0
PA
1860* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1861
0fb4aa4b
PA
1862 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1863 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1864 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1865 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1866
1867 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1868 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1869 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1870 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1871 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1872 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1873 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1874
1875 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1876 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1877
c24d0242
PM
1878 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1879
c8d5aac9
L
1880* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1881 it understands register description.
1882
7c953934
TT
1883* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1884
8685c86f
L
1885* X86 general purpose registers
1886
1887 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1888 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1889 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1890 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1891 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1892
95a42b64 1893* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1894 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1895 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1896 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1897 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1898 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1899
8bd10a10
CM
1900* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1901 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1902 in the specified file.
1903
ab38a727
PA
1904* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1905 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1906 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1907 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1908 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1909 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1910 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1911 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1912 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1913 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1914
6149aea9
PA
1915* New commands
1916
f1421989
HZ
1917eval template, expressions...
1918 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1919 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1920
ab38a727
PA
1921set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1922show target-file-system-kind
1923 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1924 names.
1925
6149aea9
PA
1926save breakpoints <filename>
1927 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1928 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1929 definitions, use the `source' command.
1930
1931`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1932is now deprecated.
1933
0fb4aa4b
PA
1934info static-tracepoint-markers
1935 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1936
1937strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1938 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1939 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1940
ca11e899
SS
1941set observer on|off
1942show observer
1943 Enable and disable observer mode.
1944
1945set may-write-registers on|off
1946set may-write-memory on|off
1947set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1948set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1949set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1950set may-interrupt on|off
1951 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1952 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1953 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1954 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1955 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1956 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1957 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1958
1959set record memory-query on|off
1960show record memory-query
1961 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1962 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1963
53a71c06
CR
1964* Changed commands
1965
1966disassemble
1967 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1968
f3e9a817
PM
1969* Python scripting
1970
9279c692
JB
1971** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1972 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1973 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1974 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1975 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1976
adc36818 1977** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1978 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1979 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1980 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1981
fa33c3cd 1982** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1983 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1984
1985** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1986
1987** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1988
967cf477
DE
1989** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1990
8a1ea21f
DE
1991** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1992 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1993 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1994
a7bdde9e
VP
1995* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1996there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1997tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1998regular breakpoints.
1999
05071a4d
PA
2000* New targets
2001
2002ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2003
6aecb9c2
JB
2004* D language support.
2005 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2006 language.
2007
431e49aa
TJB
2008* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2009 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2010 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2011 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2012 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2013
2014* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2015 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2016 conditions of the form:
2017
2018 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2019
2020 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2021 interface mentioned above.
2022
bfbf3774 2023*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 2024
4eef138c
TT
2025* C++ Improvements
2026
2027 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
2028
2029 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2030 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2031 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2032 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2033 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2034
4eef138c
TT
2035 ** Bug Fixes
2036
2037 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2038 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2039 qualified name.
2040
2041 ** Cast Operators
2042
2043 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2044 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2045
2d1c1221
ME
2046* New targets
2047
2048Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 2049Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
2050
2051* New Simulators
2052
2053Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 2054Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 2055
6c95b8df
PA
2056* Multi-program debugging.
2057
2058 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2059 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2060 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2061 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2062 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2063 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2064 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2065 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2066
d5551862
SS
2067* New tracing features
2068
2069 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2070
2071 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
2072
2073 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2074 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2075 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2076 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2077 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2078 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2079 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2080 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2081 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2082 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 2083
d5551862 2084 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
2085
2086 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2087 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2088 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2089 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2090 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2091 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2092 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2093 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2094 the regular trace command.
2095
d5551862
SS
2096 ** Disconnected tracing
2097
2098 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2099 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2100 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2101 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2102 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2103
00bf0b85
SS
2104 ** Trace files
2105
2106 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2107 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2108 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2109 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2110 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2111 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2112 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
2113
2114 ** Circular trace buffer
2115
2116 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2117 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2118 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2119 not be available for all target agents.
2120
21a0512e
PP
2121* Changed commands
2122
2123disassemble
2124 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2125 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2126
0fe7935b
DJ
2127info variables
2128 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2129 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2130
fb2e7cb4
JB
2131source
2132 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2133 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2134 support.
2135
2136 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2137 "set script-extension" (see below).
2138
6c95b8df
PA
2139* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2140
399cd161
MS
2141record save [<FILENAME>]
2142 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2143 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2144
2145record restore <FILENAME>
2146 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2147 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2148
6c95b8df
PA
2149add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2150 Add a new inferior.
2151
2152clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2153 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2154 inferior has loaded.
2155
2156remove-inferior ID
2157 Remove an inferior.
2158
2159maint info program-spaces
2160 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2161
9a7071a8
JB
2162set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2163show remote interrupt-sequence
2164 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2165 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2166 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2167 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2168 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2169
2170set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2171show remote interrupt-on-connect
2172 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2173 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2174 Linux kernel.
2175
2176set remotebreak [on | off]
2177show remotebreak
2178Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2179
f61e138d
SS
2180tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2181 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2182
2183info tvariables
2184 List trace state variables and their values.
2185
2186delete tvariable $NAME ...
2187 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2188
6da95a67
SS
2189teval EXPR, ...
2190 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2191 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2192
7a697b8d
SS
2193ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2194 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2195
b0f02ee9
JK
2196* New expression syntax
2197
2198 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2199 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2200
6c95b8df
PA
2201* New options
2202
2203set follow-exec-mode new|same
2204show follow-exec-mode
2205 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2206 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2207 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2208
236f1d4d
SS
2209set default-collect EXPR, ...
2210show default-collect
2211 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2212 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2213 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2214
d5551862
SS
2215set disconnected-tracing
2216show disconnected-tracing
2217 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2218 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2219 upon disconnection.
2220
4daf5ac0
SS
2221set circular-trace-buffer
2222show circular-trace-buffer
2223 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2224 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2225 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2226 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2227
fb2e7cb4
JB
2228set script-extension off|soft|strict
2229show script-extension
2230 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2231 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2232 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2233 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2234 evaluation failed.
2235 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2236
2b71fc8e
JB
2237set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2238show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2239 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2240 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2241 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2242 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2243 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2244 is on.
2245
de2e5182
TT
2246* Python API Improvements
2247
2248 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2249 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2250 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2251
2252 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2253 `is_base_class' attribute.
2254
2255 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2256
2257 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2258 evaluate an expression.
2259
f61e138d
SS
2260* New remote packets
2261
2262QTDV
2263 Define a trace state variable.
2264
2265qTV
2266 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2267
d5551862
SS
2268QTDisconnected
2269 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2270
4daf5ac0
SS
2271QTBuffer:circular
2272 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2273
d5551862
SS
2274qTfP, qTsP
2275 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2276
2d483d34
MS
2277* Bug fixes
2278
2279Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2280
6e0e5977
JB
2281Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2282much more reliable. In particular:
2283 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2284 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2285 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2286 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2287 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2288 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2289 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2290 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2291 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2292 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2293 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2294 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2295 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2296 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2297 non-threaded programs.
2298
93c26624
JK
2299PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2300This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2301libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2302executable program.
2303
abc7453d 2304*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 2305
4efc6507
DE
2306* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2307dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2308them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2309for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2310"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2311
782b2b07
SS
2312* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2313breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2314or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2315the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2316for tracepoint actions.
2317
53a71c06
CR
2318* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2319raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2320modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 2321
e7a8dbfb
HZ
2322* Process record and replay
2323
2324 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2325 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2326 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2327 execute commands.
2328
64644d9b
MS
2329* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2330step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2331set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2332reverse execution.
2333
b9412953
DD
2334* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2335feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
23362.6.28 or later.
2337
6c7a06a3
TT
2338* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2339target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2340char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2341literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2342U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2343`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2344system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2345the installation instructions for more information.
2346
f1838a98
UW
2347* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2348remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2349with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2350the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2351
55333a84
DE
2352* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2353and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2354
7f6a6314
PM
2355* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2356now complete on file names.
2357
65d12d83
TT
2358* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2359completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2360For instance, consider:
2361
2362 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2363 # struct example variable;
2364 (gdb) p variable.
2365
2366If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2367completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2368
edb3359d
DJ
2369* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2370the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2371
2fae03e8
TT
2372* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2373operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2374macros.
2375
47a3467a 2376* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
2377the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2378implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2379
2380* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2381registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2382can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2383and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 2384
08388c79
DE
2385* New remote packets
2386
2387qSearch:memory:
2388 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2389
a6f3e723
SL
2390QStartNoAckMode
2391 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2392 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2393 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2394
d7713ae0
EZ
2395vKill
2396 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2397 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2398
07e059b5
VP
2399qXfer:osdata:read
2400 Obtains additional operating system information
2401
47a3467a
PA
2402qXfer:siginfo:read
2403qXfer:siginfo:write
2404 Read or write additional signal information.
2405
060871df
PA
2406* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2407
2408 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2409 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2410 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2411
c055b101 2412* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 2413DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
2414
2415* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
2416and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2417`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 2418
31fffb02
CS
2419* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2420with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2421
88d8a8e0
JB
2422* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2423
7f99b190
JB
2424* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2425
ccd213ac
DJ
2426* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2427which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2428
1fddbabb 2429* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 2430list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 2431
a0ef4274
DJ
2432* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2433conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2434have also been fixed.
2435
bfb8797a 2436* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
2437From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2438are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 2439
71c25dea
TT
2440* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2441example, given:
2442
2443 template<typename T> class C { };
2444 C<char const *> c;
2445
2446GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2447
2448 ptype C<char const *>
2449 ptype C<char const*>
2450 ptype C<const char *>
2451 ptype C<const char*>
2452
ccd213ac
DJ
2453* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2454
2455 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2456 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2457
7ae0e2a2
UW
2458 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2459 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2460 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2461
a6f3e723
SL
2462 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2463 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2464
da8bd9a3
DJ
2465 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2466 gdbserver.
2467
d70e31dd
DE
2468 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2469 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2470
2471 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2472 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2473 as appropriate.
2474
d57a3c85
TJB
2475* Python scripting
2476
2477 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2478 available is determined at configure time.
2479
d8906c6f
TJB
2480 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2481
aadc346a
JB
2482* Ada tasking support
2483
2484 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2485 been introduced:
2486
2487 info tasks
2488 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2489 info task N
2490 Print detailed information about task number N.
2491 task
2492 Print the task number of the current task.
2493 task N
2494 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2495
adb483fe
DJ
2496* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2497add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2498
2277426b
PA
2499* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2500
2501 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2502 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2503 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2504 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2505 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2506 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2507 below.
2508
08d16641
PA
2509* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2510"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2511information.
2512
e35359c5
UW
2513* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2514to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2515architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2516See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2517more information.
2518
85e747d2
UW
2519* Multi-architecture debugging.
2520
2521 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2522 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2523 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2524 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2525 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2526
2527* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2528use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2529Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2530powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2531--enable-targets configure option.
2532
11ade57a
PA
2533* Non-stop mode debugging.
2534
2535 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2536 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2537 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2538 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2539 section in the user manual for more information.
2540
2541 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2542 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2543 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2544 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2545 extensions on linux targets.
2546
d7713ae0 2547* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2548
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2549catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2550 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2551 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2552 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2553 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2554 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2555 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2556 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2557 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2558
08388c79
DE
2559find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2560 val1 [, val2, ...]
2561 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2562
d57a3c85
TJB
2563maint set python print-stack
2564maint show python print-stack
2565 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2566
2567python [CODE]
2568 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2569
d7713ae0
EZ
2570macro define
2571macro list
2572macro undef
2573 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2574 interactively.
2575
2576info os processes
2577 Show operating system information about processes.
2578
2277426b
PA
2579info inferiors
2580 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2581
2582inferior NUM
2583 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2584
2585detach inferior NUM
2586 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2587
2588kill inferior NUM
2589 Kill inferior number NUM.
2590
d7713ae0
EZ
2591* New options
2592
3285f3fe
UW
2593set spu stop-on-load
2594show spu stop-on-load
2595 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2596
ff1a52c6
UW
2597set spu auto-flush-cache
2598show spu auto-flush-cache
2599 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2600 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2601
d7713ae0
EZ
2602set sh calling-convention
2603show sh calling-convention
2604 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2605
e0a3ce09 2606set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2607show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2608 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2609
2610set disassemble-next-line
2611show disassemble-next-line
2612 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2613 the debuggee stops.
2614
2615set remote noack-packet
2616show remote noack-packet
2617 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2618 under "New remote packets."
2619
2620set remote query-attached-packet
2621show remote query-attached-packet
2622 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2623
2624set remote read-siginfo-object
2625show remote read-siginfo-object
2626 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2627 packet.
2628
2629set remote write-siginfo-object
2630show remote write-siginfo-object
2631 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2632 packet.
2633
40ab02ce
MS
2634set remote reverse-continue
2635show remote reverse-continue
2636 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2637
2638set remote reverse-step
2639show remote reverse-step
2640 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2641
d7713ae0
EZ
2642set displaced-stepping
2643show displaced-stepping
2644 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2645 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2646 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2647
2648set debug displaced
2649show debug displaced
2650 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2651
2652maint set internal-error
2653maint show internal-error
2654 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2655
2656maint set internal-warning
2657maint show internal-warning
2658 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2659
ccd213ac
DJ
2660set exec-wrapper
2661show exec-wrapper
2662unset exec-wrapper
2663 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2664
aad4b048
JB
2665set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2666show multiple-symbols
2667 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2668 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2669 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2670
74960c60
VP
2671set breakpoint always-inserted
2672show breakpoint always-inserted
2673 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2674 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2675 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2676
0428b8f5
DJ
2677set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2678show arm fallback-mode
2679set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2680show arm force-mode
2681 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2682 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2683 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2684 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2685
10568435
JK
2686set disable-randomization
2687show disable-randomization
2688 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2689 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2690 multiple debugging sessions.
2691
d7713ae0
EZ
2692set non-stop
2693show non-stop
2694 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2695 a breakpoint.
2696
b3eb342c 2697set target-async
d7713ae0 2698show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2699 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2700 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2701 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2702 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2703
6c7a06a3
TT
2704set target-wide-charset
2705show target-wide-charset
2706 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2707 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2708
84603566
SL
2709set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2710show tcp auto-retry
2711set tcp connect-timeout
2712show tcp connect-timeout
2713 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2714 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2715 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2716
17a37d48
PP
2717set libthread-db-search-path
2718show libthread-db-search-path
2719 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2720 libthread_db.
2721
d4db2f36
PA
2722set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2723show schedule-multiple
2724 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2725 the current process.
2726
4e5d721f
DE
2727set stack-cache
2728show stack-cache
2729 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2730 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2731 affecting correctness.
2732
910c5da8
JB
2733set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2734show interactive-mode
2735 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2736 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2737 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2738 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2739 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2740
2277426b
PA
2741* Removed commands
2742
2743info forks
2744 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2745 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2746 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2747 command.
2748
2749fork NUM
2750 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2751 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2752 alias for the `fork' command.
2753
2754process PID
2755 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2756 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2757 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2758
2759delete fork NUM
2760 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2761 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2762 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2763 fork' command.
2764
2765detach fork NUM
2766 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2767 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2768 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2769 fork' command.
2770
a80b95ba
TG
2771* New native configurations
2772
2773x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2774
b8bfd3ed
JB
2775x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2776
75a2d5e7
TT
2777* New targets
2778
c28c63d8 2779Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2780x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2781x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2782S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2783
6de3146c
PA
2784* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2785 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2786
d5cbbe6e
JB
2787* Removed commands
2788
2789catch load
2790catch unload
2791 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2792
75feb17d 2793*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2794
af5ca30d
NH
2795* New native configurations
2796
2797NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2798Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2799
2800* New targets
2801
2802NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2803Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2804
7a404eba
PA
2805* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2806
2807 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2808 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2809 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2810 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2811
430ebac9
PA
2812* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2813(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2814
fe6fbf8b 2815* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2816is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2817
2818* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2819including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2820and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2821
10665d76
JB
2822* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2823accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2824more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2825
7cc46491
DJ
2826* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2827
d71340b8
DJ
2828* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2829registers on PowerPC targets.
2830
523c4513
DJ
2831* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2832targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2833
a6b151f1
DJ
2834* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2835commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2836
2d717e4f
DJ
2837* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2838extended-remote mode.
2839
24a836bd 2840* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2841The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2842error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2843The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2844
d0c678e6
UW
2845* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2846building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2847target architectures.
2848
d64a946d
TJB
2849* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2850Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2851now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2852stored in two consecutive float registers.
2853
ee163bf5
VP
2854* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2855breakpoints now.
2856
b93b6ca7 2857* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2858Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2859include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2860 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2861 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2862 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2863 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2864 of an assignment
2865 - Improved command completion in Ada
2866 - Several bug fixes
2867
d001be7a
DJ
2868* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2869process.
2870
a6b151f1
DJ
2871* New commands
2872
6d53d0af
JB
2873set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2874show print frame-arguments
2875 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2876 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2877
a6b151f1
DJ
2878remote put
2879remote get
2880remote delete
2881 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2882
2883* New MI commands
2884
2885-target-file-put
2886-target-file-get
2887-target-file-delete
2888 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2889
2890* New remote packets
2891
2892vFile:open:
2893vFile:close:
2894vFile:pread:
2895vFile:pwrite:
2896vFile:unlink:
2897 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2898
2d717e4f
DJ
2899vAttach
2900 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2901 mode.
2902
2903vRun
2904 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2905
8d5f9c6f 2906*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2907
19d378fc
MS
2908* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2909bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2910Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2911
3a40aaa0
UW
2912* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2913symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2914-Bsymbolic linker option.
2915
a6ec25f2
BW
2916* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2917recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2918is not supported.
2919
6dd09645
JB
2920* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2921frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2922
c9bb8148
DJ
2923* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
292432-bit or 64-bit register values.
2925
0d5de010
DJ
2926* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2927
23181151
DJ
2928* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2929target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2930a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2931
ea37ba09
DJ
2932* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2933automatically displayed as character or string data.
2934
2935* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2936arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2937as strings.
e1f48ead 2938
123dc839
DJ
2939* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2940for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2941only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2942
05a4558a
DJ
2943* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2944iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2945
7c963485
PA
2946* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2947ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2948has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2949
b18be20d
DJ
2950* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2951
0ca420ce
UW
2952* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2953
31d99776
DJ
2954* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2955layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2956segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2957
a4642986
MR
2958* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2959immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2960
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2961* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2962"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2963packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2964where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2965Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2966
2967* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2968(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2969
2970* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2971according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2972
c9bb8148
DJ
2973* New commands
2974
23776285
MR
2975set remoteflow
2976show remoteflow
2977 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2978 when debugging using remote targets.
2979
c9bb8148
DJ
2980set mem inaccessible-by-default
2981show mem inaccessible-by-default
2982 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2983 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2984 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2985 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2986 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2987
2988set breakpoint auto-hw
2989show breakpoint auto-hw
2990 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2991 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2992 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2993 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2994 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2995 including "next" and "finish".
2996
0e420bd8
JB
2997catch exception
2998catch exception unhandled
2999 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3000
3001catch assert
3002 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3003
f822c95b
DJ
3004set sysroot
3005show sysroot
3006 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3007 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3008 an alias to "set sysroot".
3009
83cc5c53
UW
3010info spu
3011 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3012 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3013 architecture.
3014
bd372731
MK
3015* New native configurations
3016
3017OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3018
23181151
DJ
3019set tdesc filename
3020unset tdesc filename
3021show tdesc filename
3022 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3023 not query the target for its built-in description.
3024
c9bb8148
DJ
3025* New targets
3026
54fe9172 3027OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 3028MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 3029Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 3030
6dd09645
JB
3031* New remote packets
3032
3033QPassSignals:
3034 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3035 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3036
23181151
DJ
3037qXfer:features:read:
3038 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3039 features.
6dd09645 3040
83cc5c53
UW
3041qXfer:spu:read:
3042qXfer:spu:write:
3043 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3044 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3045
cfa9d6d9
DJ
3046qXfer:libraries:read:
3047 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3048 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3049 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3050 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3051
483367ee
DJ
3052* Removed targets
3053
3054Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3055
d08950c4
UW
3056alpha*-*-osf1*
3057alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 3058d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
3059hppa*-*-hiux*
3060i[34567]86-ncr-*
3061i[34567]86-*-dgux*
3062i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3063i[34567]86-*-netware*
3064i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3065i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3066i[34567]86-*-sco*
3067i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3068i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
3069i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
3070i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3071i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3072i[34567]86-*-sysv*
3073i[34567]86-*-isc*
3074m68*-cisco*-*
3075m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 3076mips*-*-pe
483367ee 3077rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 3078sh*-*-pe
483367ee 3079
7ce59000
DJ
3080* Other removed features
3081
3082target abug
3083target cpu32bug
3084target est
3085target rom68k
3086
3087 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3088
ea35711c
DJ
3089target hms
3090target e7000
3091target sh3
3092target sh3e
3093
3094 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3095 H8/300.
3096
3097target ocd
3098
3099 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3100 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3101 interfaces.
3102
7ce59000
DJ
3103DWARF 1 support
3104
3105 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3106 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3107
54d61198
DJ
3108Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3109
3110 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3111 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3112 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3113 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3114
ea35711c
DJ
3115MIPS ".pdr" sections
3116
3117 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3118 in debugging information.
3119
3120Scheme support
3121
3122 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3123 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3124
1a69e1e4
DJ
3125set mips stack-arg-size
3126set mips saved-gpreg-size
3127
3128 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3129
6dd09645 3130*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 3131
ca3bf3bd
DJ
3132* New targets
3133
3134Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 3135Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 3136
6aec2e11
DJ
3137* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3138(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3139running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3140
3141* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3142Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3143supported.
3144
17218d91
DJ
3145* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3146broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3147
9ebce043
DJ
3148* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3149stub provides the required support.
3150
7d3d3ece
DJ
3151* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3152longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3153
4f8253f3
JB
3154* New commands
3155
3156set substitute-path
3157unset substitute-path
3158show substitute-path
3159 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3160 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3161 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3162 between compilation and debugging.
3163
9fa66fd7
AS
3164set trace-commands
3165show trace-commands
3166 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3167 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3168 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3169
1f5befc1
DJ
3170* REMOVED features
3171
3172The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3173
2ec3381a
DJ
3174Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3175an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3176
3d00d119
DJ
3177The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3178
be2a5f71
DJ
3179* New remote packets
3180
3181qSupported:
3182 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3183 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3184 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3185 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3186 target.
3187
0876f84a
DJ
3188qXfer:auxv:read:
3189 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3190 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3191
9ebce043
DJ
3192qXfer:memory-map:read:
3193 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3194 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3195
3196vFlashErase:
3197vFlashWrite:
3198vFlashDone:
3199 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3200
0876f84a
DJ
3201* Removed remote packets
3202
3203qPart:auxv:read:
3204 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3205 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3206
e374b601 3207*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 3208
96309189
MS
3209* New targets
3210
3211Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3212
3213Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3214
53e5f3cf
AS
3215* New commands
3216
3217init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3218 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3219
ac264b3b
MS
3220The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3221
3222checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3223
3224restart <n> Return the program state to a
3225 previously saved state.
3226
3227info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3228
3229delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3230
3231set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3232 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3233
3234info forks List forks of the user program that
3235 are available to be debugged.
3236
3237fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3238 forks of the user program that are
3239 available to be debugged.
3240
3241delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3242 that are available to be debugged (and
3243 kill the forked process).
3244
3245detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3246 that are available to be debugged (and
3247 allow the process to continue).
3248
3950dc3f
NS
3249* New architecture
3250
3251Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3252
0ea3f30e
DJ
3253* Improved Windows host support
3254
3255GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3256native console support, and remote communications using either
3257network sockets or serial ports.
3258
f79daebb
GM
3259* Improved Modula-2 language support
3260
3261GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3262basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3263pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3264printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3265written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3266GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3267
acab6ab2
MM
3268* REMOVED features
3269
3270The ARM rdi-share module.
3271
f4267320
DJ
3272The Netware NLM debug server.
3273
53e5f3cf 3274*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 3275
e0ecbda1
MK
3276* New native configurations
3277
02a677ac 3278OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
3279OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3280
d64a6579
KB
3281* New targets
3282
3283Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3284
b33a6190
AS
3285* New command line options
3286
3287--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3288--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3289 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3290--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3291 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3292 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3293 with the --command (-x) option.
3294
11dced61
AC
3295* Deprecated commands removed
3296
3297The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3298removed:
3299
3300 Command Replacement
3301 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3302 othernames set arm disassembler
3303 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3304 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3305 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3306 regs info registers
3307
6fe85783
MK
3308* New BSD user-level threads support
3309
3310It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3311library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3312configurations are:
3313
3314FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3315FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3316OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3317
3318Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3319are not yet supported.
3320
5260ca71
MS
3321* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3322(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3323
e84ecc99
AC
3324* REMOVED configurations and files
3325
3326VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 3327Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 3328National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 3329
31e35378
JB
3330* New "set print array-indexes" command
3331
3332After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3333when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3334behavior.
3335
e85e5c83
MK
3336* VAX floating point support
3337
3338GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3339
d91e9901
AS
3340* User-defined command support
3341
3342In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3343to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3344section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3345
f2cb65ca
MC
3346*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3347
f47b1503
AS
3348* New command line option
3349
3350GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3351debugging.
3352
f2cb65ca
MC
3353* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3354
3355GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3356information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3357by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3358proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3359to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 3360
d08c0230
AC
3361* Internationalization
3362
3363When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3364internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3365continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3366
117ea3cf
PH
3367* Ada
3368
3369Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3370implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3371into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3372
d08c0230
AC
3373* New native configurations
3374
3375GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3376
3377* Remote 'p' packet
3378
3379GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3380packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3381
3382* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3383
3384GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3385The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3386features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3387i386 application).
3388
3389GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3390compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3391continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3392configurations:
3393
3394hppa-*-hpux
3395ia64-*-aix
3396mips-*-irix*
3397*-*-lynx
3398mips-*-linux-gnu
3399sds protocol
3400xdr protocol
3401powerpc bdm protocol
3402
3403Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3404made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3405
3406* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3407
3408Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3409been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3410configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3411permanently REMOVED.
3412
3413h8300-*-*
3414mcore-*-*
3415mn10300-*-*
3416ns32k-*-*
3417sh64-*-*
3418v850-*-*
3419
ebb7c577
AC
3420*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3421
3422* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3423
3424When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3425heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3426been fixed.
3427
3428* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3429
3430When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3431fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3432IRIX long double values).
3433
3434* VAX and "next"
3435
3436A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3437command. This problem has been fixed.
3438
860660cb 3439*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 3440
0dea2468
AC
3441* Fix for ``many threads''
3442
3443On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3444rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3445error message:
3446
3447 ptrace: No such process.
3448 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3449
3450This problem has been fixed.
3451
2c07db7a
AC
3452* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3453
3454Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3455GDB to dump core).
3456
c23968a2
JB
3457* New ``start'' command.
3458
3459This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3460
71009278
MK
3461* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3462
3463Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3464live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3465platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3466
3467FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3468FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3469NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3470NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3471NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3472OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3473OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3474OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3475OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3476
3c0b7db2
AC
3477* Signal trampoline code overhauled
3478
3479Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3480These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3481of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3482call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3483signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3484
73cc75f3
AC
3485Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3486features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3487include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 3488
7243600a
BF
3489* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3490
6f606e1c
MK
3491* New native configurations
3492
97dc871c 3493GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 3494OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
3495OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3496OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 3497OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3498NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 3499OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3500
a1b461bf
AC
3501* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3502
3503GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3504The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3505including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3506migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3507compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3508work, was also included.
3509
3510GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3511module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3512
3513h8300-*-*
3514mcore-*-*
3515mn10300-*-*
3516ns32k-*-*
3517sh64-*-*
3518v850-*-*
3519xstormy16-*-*
3520
3521Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3522made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3523
3c7012f5
AC
3524* REMOVED configurations and files
3525
3526Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3527Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3528Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3529Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3530Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3531AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3532Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3533decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3534riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3535sonymips mips-sony-*
3536sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3537
e5fe55f7
AC
3538*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3539
3540* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3541
3542The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3543GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3544command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3545program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3546with GDB".
3547
3548* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3549
3550Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3551libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3552cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3553GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3554shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3555the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3556are created.
3557
3558Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3559
3560* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3561
3562The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3563non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3564compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3565
3566* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3567
3568Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3569wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3570
3571* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3572
3573The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3574permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3575systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3576
3577* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3578
3579Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3580has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3581
3582* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3583
3584GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3585its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3586panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3587
3588* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3589
3590When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3591by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3592not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3593
faae5abe 3594*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3595
9175c9a3
MC
3596* Removed --with-mmalloc
3597
3598Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3599conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3600
3cc87ec0
MK
3601* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3602
3603The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3604the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3605and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3606you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3607
f0424ef6
MK
3608* Revised SPARC target
3609
3610The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3611FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3612support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3613from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3614(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3615
59659be2
ILT
3616* New C++ demangler
3617
3618GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3619names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3620with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3621programs.
3622
9e08b29b
DJ
3623* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3624
3625GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3626arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3627encountered these.
3628
8dfe8985
DC
3629* C++ nested types and namespaces
3630
3631GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3632improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3633is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3634Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3635namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3636"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3637frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3638if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3639GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3640
cced5e27
MK
3641* New native configurations
3642
3643NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3644OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3645OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3646OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3647OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3648
b4b4b794
KI
3649* New debugging protocols
3650
3651M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3652
7989c619
AC
3653* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3654
3655The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3656and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3657tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3658
5994185b
AC
3659* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3660
3661Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3662been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3663configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3664permanently REMOVED.
3665
3666Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3667Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3668Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3669Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3670Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3671AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3672Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3673decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3674riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3675sonymips mips-sony-*
3676sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3677
0ddabb4c
AC
3678* REMOVED configurations and files
3679
3680SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3681SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3682Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3683Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3684H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3685HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3686HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3687HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3688PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3689386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3690Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3691 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3692 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3693SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3694SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3695Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3696Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3697
c7f1390e
DJ
3698*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3699
1fe43d45
AC
3700* Objective-C
3701
3702Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3703integrated into GDB.
3704
e6beb428
AC
3705* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3706
3707DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3708information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3709By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3710backtraces.
3711
3712The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3713have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3714DWARF 2 CFI support.
3715
3716* Hosted file I/O.
3717
3718GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3719file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3720remote protocol documentation for details.
3721
3722* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3723
3724All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3725architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3726to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3727ppc32 on ppc64).
3728
3729* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3730
3731GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3732per-thread variables.
3733
3734* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3735
3736GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3737GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3738
3739* Separate debug info.
3740
3741GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3742automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3743of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3744system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3745and optional debug files.
3746
3747* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3748
3749DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3750describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3751debugger.
3752
3753GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3754for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3755
3756* Java
3757
3758A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3759Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3760considered "useable".
3761
85f8f974
DJ
3762* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3763
3764The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3765commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3766kernel.
3767
0fac0b41
DJ
3768* GDB supports logging output to a file
3769
3770There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3771used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3772
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3773* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3774
3775The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3776disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3777command.
3778
e286caf2 3779* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3780
3781The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3782registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3783
d28f9cdf
DJ
3784* Profiling support
3785
3786A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3787be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3788session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3789"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3790data, for more informative profiling results.
3791
da0f9dcd
AC
3792* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3793
3794The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3795option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3796"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3797
3798Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3799removed.
3800
fb9b6b35
JJ
3801Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3802Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3803Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3804 in a subsequent -var-update.
3805
954a4db8
MK
3806* New native configurations.
3807
3808FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3809
6760f9e6
JB
3810* Multi-arched targets.
3811
b4263afa 3812HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3813Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3814
1b831c93
AC
3815* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3816
3817Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3818been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3819configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3820permanently REMOVED.
3821
8b0e5691 3822Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3823Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3824H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3825HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3826HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3827HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3828PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3829Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3830 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3831 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3832Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3833Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3834
5835abe7
NC
3835* REMOVED configurations and files
3836
3837V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3838Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3839IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3840i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3841i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3842i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3843HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3844 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3845 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3846Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3847Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3848Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3849OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3850I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3851
a094c6fb
AC
3852* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3853
3854The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3855the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3856context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3857address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3858The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3859
299ffc64 3860*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3861
46248966
AC
3862* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3863
3864When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3865`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3866in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3867library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3868shared libs like mad''.
3869
b9d14705 3870* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3871
b9d14705
DJ
3872Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3873the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3874arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3875powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3876
e0e9281e
JB
3877* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3878
3879GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3880and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3881they expand.
3882
dd73b9bb
AC
3883The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3884invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3885
3886The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3887macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3888
e0e9281e
JB
3889Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3890information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3891your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3892information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3893
2250ee0c
CV
3894* Multi-arched targets.
3895
6e3ba3b8
JT
3896DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3897DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3898NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3899National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3900Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3901Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3902
cd9bfe15 3903* New targets.
e33ce519 3904
456f8b9d
DB
3905Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3906
e33ce519 3907
da8ca43d
JT
3908* New native configurations
3909
3910Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3911SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3912MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3913UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3914
cd9bfe15
AC
3915* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3916
3917Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3918been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3919configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3920permanently REMOVED.
3921
92eb23c5 3922Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3923OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3924IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3925Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3926Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3927Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3928i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3929i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3930i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3931HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3932 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3933 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3934I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3935
db034ac5
AC
3936* OBSOLETE languages
3937
3938CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3939
cd9bfe15
AC
3940* REMOVED configurations and files
3941
3942AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3943A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3944AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3945AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3946AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3947
3948testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3949
20f01a46
DH
3950* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3951
3952This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3953commands. The default is 1024.
3954
a5941fbf
MK
3955* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3956
3957Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3958
89743e04
MS
3959* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3960
3961These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3962to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3963from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3964
9fb14e79
JB
3965* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3966
3967The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3968including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3969of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3970
2037aebb
AC
3971*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3972
3973* New targets.
3974
3975Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3976
3977* Bug fixes
3978
3979gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3980mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3981Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3982
3983gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3984dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3985Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3986
3987Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3988Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3989By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3990
3991i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3992avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3993By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3994
37057839 3995*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3996
1a703748
MS
3997* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3998
3999This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4000really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4001In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4002target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4003This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4004(notably embedded) targets.
4005
cefd4ef5
MS
4006* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4007
55241689
AC
4008This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4009process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4010GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4011hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 4012
352ed7b4
MS
4013* New command line option
4014
4015GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4016
4017* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4018
4019There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4020command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4021a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4022be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4023open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4024issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4025a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4026it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4027GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4028is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4029
fe419ffc
RE
4030* Changes in ARM configurations.
4031
4032Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4033configuration is fully multi-arch.
4034
eb7cedd9
MK
4035* New native configurations
4036
fe419ffc 4037ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 4038x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 4039AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 4040Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 4041
c9f63e6b
CV
4042* New targets
4043
4044Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4045
9b4ff276
AC
4046* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4047
4048Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4049been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4050configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4051permanently REMOVED.
4052
4053AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4054A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4055AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4056AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4057AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4058
b4ceaee6 4059testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 4060
e2caac18
AC
4061* REMOVED configurations and files
4062
4063TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 4064WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
4065PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4066PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4067PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 4068Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
4069Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4070 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 4071SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 4072Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
4073Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4074ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 4075Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 4076
c2a727fa
TT
4077* Changes to command line processing
4078
4079The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4080for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4081
467d8519
TT
4082* Changes to key bindings
4083
4084There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4085
7072a954
AC
4086*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4087
4088Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4089
4090Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4091corrupted.
4092
4093Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4094
4095Numerous documentation fixes.
4096
4097Numerous testsuite fixes.
4098
34f47bc4 4099*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
4100
4101* New native configurations
4102
4103Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4104x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 4105MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
4106MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4107ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 4108s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 4109
bf64bfd6
AC
4110* New targets
4111
def90278 4112Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 4113CRIS cris-axis
55241689 4114UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 4115
17e78a56 4116* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
4117
4118x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 4119Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
4120Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4121 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
4122TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4123WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 4124Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
4125PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4126PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4127PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 4128SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
4129Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4130ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 4131Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 4132
17e78a56
AC
4133stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4134kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4135
7fcca85b
AC
4136Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4137been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4138configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4139permanently REMOVED.
4140
a196c81c 4141* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
4142
4143Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4144Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4145Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4146ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4147Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 4148ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 4149
6d6b80e5 4150* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 4151
6d6b80e5 4152GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
4153sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4154present.
4155
bf64bfd6
AC
4156* Other news:
4157
e23194cb
EZ
4158* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4159
4160* The MI enabled by default.
4161
4162The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4163revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4164engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4165using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4166which is now deprecated.
4167
4168* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4169
4170GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4171main features are supported:
4172
4173 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4174
4175 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4176 extension;
4177
4178 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4179
4180 - a Pascal expression parser.
4181
4182However, some important features are not yet supported.
4183
4184 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4185
4186 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4187
4188 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4189 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4190
4191 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4192
4193 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4194
4195* Changes in completion.
4196
4197Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4198to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4199users expect at the shell prompt.
4200
4201Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4202`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4203program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4204files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4205be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4206considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4207name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4208
4209`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4210
4211* New platform-independent commands:
4212
4213It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4214hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4215documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4216
4217* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4218
d7275149
MK
4219Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4220revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4221many threads as your system allows you to have.
4222
e23194cb
EZ
4223Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4224
d7275149
MK
4225Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4226multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
4227
4228* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
4229
4230Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4231
e23194cb
EZ
4232GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4233debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4234supported.)
4235
4236* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4237
4238Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4239breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4240implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4241put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4242and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4243registers.
4244
4245The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4246debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4247watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4248
4249* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4250
4251New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4252the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4253
4254New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4255display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4256IDT.
4257
4258New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4259from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4260New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4261a given linear address.
4262
4263GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4264program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4265which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4266
4267DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4268
6c56c069
EZ
4269It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4270
e23194cb
EZ
4271* Changes in documentation.
4272
4273All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4274Documentation License.
4275
4276Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4277manual.
4278
4279TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4280
4281Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4282manual.
4283
4284The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4285documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4286hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4287
5d6640b1
AC
4288* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4289
4290The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4291``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4292contents of this file.
4293
1a1d8446
AC
4294* gdba.el deleted
4295
4296GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 4297
9debab2f 4298*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 4299
c63ce875
EZ
4300* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4301
4302Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4303programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4304displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4305greater level of detail.
4306
4307* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4308
4309It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4310bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4311on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4312written.
4313
4314* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4315
4316The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4317necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4318machines ``out of the box''.
4319
4320The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4321possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4322signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4323would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4324interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4325
4326It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4327standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4328even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4329and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4330terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4331
4332The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4333enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4334also works.
4335
4336DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4337GDB.
4338
4339It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4340directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4341times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4342breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4343
ed9a39eb
JM
4344* New native configurations
4345
4346ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 4347PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 4348
7a292a7a
SS
4349* New targets
4350
96baa820 4351Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
4352x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4353PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
4354TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4355
085dd6e6
JM
4356* OBSOLETE configurations
4357
4358Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4359Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 4360Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 4361ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 4362Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 4363
9debab2f
AC
4364Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4365but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4366these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4367be permanently REMOVED.
4368
5330533d
SS
4369* Gould support removed
4370
4371Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4372
bc9e5bbf
AC
4373* New features for SVR4
4374
4375On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4376without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4377load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4378
4379* Many C++ enhancements
4380
4381C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4382in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4383
adf40b2e
JM
4384* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4385
4386A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4387sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4388with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4389``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4390
4391 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4392 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4393
43e526b9
JM
4394* MIPS 64 remote protocol
4395
4396A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4397expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4398instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4399
4400The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4401added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4402
96baa820
JM
4403* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4404
4405The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4406``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4407include ``set remote P-packet''.
4408
11cf8741
JM
4409* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4410
4411The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4412accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4413``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4414
7876dd43
DB
4415* ``apropos'' command added.
4416
4417The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4418documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4419try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4420
bc9e5bbf
AC
4421* New MI interface
4422
4423A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4424interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
4425process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4426"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4427enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
4428
4429 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4430
c906108c
SS
4431*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4432
4433* New native configurations
4434
4435HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4436HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 4437M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
4438
4439* New targets
4440
4441Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4442Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4443Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4444
4445* OBSOLETE configurations
4446
4447Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4448
4449Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4450but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4451these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4452be permanently REMOVED.
4453
4454* ANSI/ISO C
4455
4456As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4457buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4458containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4459use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4460available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4461configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4462information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4463already.
4464
4465* Readline 2.2
4466
4467GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4468
4469* set extension-language
4470
4471You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4472languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4473you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4474 set extension-language .c c++
4475The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4476and their associated languages.
4477
4478* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4479
4480When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4481you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4482PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4483
4484 set processor NAME
4485
4486sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4487following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4488
4489 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4490 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4491 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4492 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4493 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4494 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4495 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4496 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4497 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4498 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4499 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4500
4501At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4502special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4503registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4504only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4505
4506* HP-UX support
4507
4508Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4509more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4510library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4511support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4512for xdb and dbx commands.
4513
4514* Catchpoints
4515
4516HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4517generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4518to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4519
4520This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4521argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4522output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4523
4524* Debugging across forks
4525
4526On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4527in the inferior.
4528
4529* TUI
4530
4531HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4532it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4533configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4534
4535* GDB remote protocol additions
4536
4537A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4538Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4539fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4540allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4541
4542For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4543full 64-bit address. The command
4544
4545 set remoteaddresssize 32
4546
4547can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4548the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4549will be discarded.
4550
4551In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4552command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4553
4554 maint packet heythere
4555
4556sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4557disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4558time.
4559
4560The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4561target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4562downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4563
4564* Tracing can collect general expressions
4565
4566You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4567further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4568doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4569
4570* mask-address variable for Mips
4571
4572For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4573a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4574of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4575
4576* Higher serial baud rates
4577
4578GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4579230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4580to achieve all of these rates.)
4581
4582* i960 simulator
4583
4584The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4585builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4586
4587
4588*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4589
4590* New native configurations
4591
4592Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4593Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4594Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4595PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4596PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4597Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4598Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4599
4600* New targets
4601
4602Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4603Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4604Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4605Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4606MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4607MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4608MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4609Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4610Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4611Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4612NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4613
4614* New debugging protocols
4615
4616ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4617M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4618DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4619PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4620PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4621Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4622
4623* DWARF 2
4624
4625All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4626format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4627information.
4628
4629* Java frontend
4630
4631GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4632only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4633
4634* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4635
4636For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4637loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4638locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4639
4640* Live range splitting
4641
4642GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4643range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4644more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4645
4646* Hurd support
4647
4648GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4649updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4650
4651* ARM Thumb support
4652
4653GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4654instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4655instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4656accordingly.
4657
4658* MIPS16 support
4659
4660GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4661instruction set.
4662
4663* Overlay support
4664
4665GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4666linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4667will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4668control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4669additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4670in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4671
4672* info symbol
4673
4674The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4675the symbol at the specified address.
4676
4677* Trace support
4678
4679The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4680asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4681extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4682includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4683file tracepoint.c for more details.
4684
4685* MIPS simulator
4686
4687Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4688by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4689of most MIPS variants.
4690
4691* Sparc simulator
4692
4693Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4694by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4695Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4696
4697* set architecture
4698
4699For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4700basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4701architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4702the possible architectures.
4703
4704*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4705
4706* New native configurations
4707
4708Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4709M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4710PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4711PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4712PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4713RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4714
4715* New targets
4716
4717ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4718I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4719MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4720MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4721PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4722Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4723Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4724
4725* PowerPC simulator
4726
4727The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4728contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4729PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4730basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4731performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4732
4733* Solaris 2.5
4734
4735GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4736
4737* Windows 95/NT native
4738
4739GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4740To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4741which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4742Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4743ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4744
4745* dont-repeat command
4746
4747If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4748command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4749useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4750extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4751
4752* Send break instead of ^C
4753
4754The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4755rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4756GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4757
4758* Remote protocol timeout
4759
4760The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4761that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4762to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4763
4764* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4765
4766By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4767loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4768stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4769when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4770in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4771
4772Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4773/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4774automatically on hpux10.
4775
4776* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4777
4778Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4779
4780* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4781
4782When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4783may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4784the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4785every character. The default value is 1050.
4786
4787* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4788
4789If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4790a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4791replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4792details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4793remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4794to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4795
4796* Speedups for remote debugging
4797
4798GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4799the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4800and more efficient S-record downloading.
4801
4802* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4803
4804GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4805Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4806
4807*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4808
4809* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4810
4811The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4812can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4813
4814* Remote targets use caching
4815
4816Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4817remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4818it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4819debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4820off' turns the the data cache off.
4821
4822* Remote targets may have threads
4823
4824The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4825in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4826gdb/remote.c for details.
4827
4828* NetROM support
4829
4830If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4831support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4832acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4833write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4834support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4835another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4836sequence is something like
4837
4838 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4839 load <prog>
4840 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4841
4842* Macintosh host
4843
4844GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4845may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4846it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4847available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4848device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4849directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4850scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4851mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4852
4853* Autoconf
4854
4855GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4856but does simplify configuration and building.
4857
4858* hpux10
4859
4860GDB now supports hpux10.
4861
4862*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4863
4864* New native configurations
4865
4866x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4867x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4868NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4869Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4870
4871* New targets
4872
4873A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4874HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4875CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4876PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4877WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4878
4879* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4880
4881GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4882possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4883filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4884the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4885if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4886
4887* Arguments to user-defined commands
4888
4889User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4890Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4891trivial example:
4892define adder
4893 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4894
4895To execute the command use:
4896adder 1 2 3
4897
4898Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4899Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4900use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4901
4902* New `if' and `while' commands
4903
4904This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4905commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4906expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4907execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4908terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4909`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4910if the expression is zero.
4911
4912* Fortran source language mode
4913
4914GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4915Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4916variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4917with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4918Fortran compilers.
4919
4920* Better HPUX support
4921
4922Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4923running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4924processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4925for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4926that behavior do the following before running the program:
4927
4928 adb -w a.out
4929 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4930 control-d
4931
4932This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4933To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4934
4935 adb -w a.out
4936 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4937 control-d
4938
4939You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4940the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4941external linkage.
4942
4943GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4944HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4945
4946* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4947
4948You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4949commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4950current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4951"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4952associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4953configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4954
4955* New DOS host serial code
4956
4957This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4958no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4959a PC's serial port.
4960
4961*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4962
4963* New "complete" command
4964
4965This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4966were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4967
4968* Trailing space optional in prompt
4969
4970"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4971allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4972
4973* Breakpoint hit counts
4974
4975"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4976has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4977can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4978to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4979less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4980that breakpoint.
4981
4982* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4983
4984"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4985an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4986arrays actually contain only short strings.
4987
4988* Shared library breakpoints
4989
4990In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4991breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4992
4993* Hardware watchpoints
4994
4995There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4996targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4997
55241689 4998Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4999
5000* Annotations
5001
5002Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5003and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5004
5005* Improved Irix 5 support
5006
5007GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5008
5009* Improved HPPA support
5010
5011GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5012
5013* New native configurations
5014
5015Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5016HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5017Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5018RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5019
5020* New targets
5021
5022OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5023MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5024Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
5025
5026* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5027
5028There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5029This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5030
5031* Fixes
5032
5033As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5034and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5035
5036*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5037
5038* Irix 5 is now supported
5039
5040* HPPA support
5041
5042GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5043to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5044GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5045of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5046can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5047
5048
5049*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5050
5051* User visible changes:
5052
5053* Remote Debugging
5054
5055The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5056target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5057debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5058integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5059debugging info for the mips target).
5060
5061* DEC Alpha native support
5062
5063GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5064debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5065work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5066Alpha-specific notes.
5067
5068* Preliminary thread implementation
5069
5070GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5071
5072* LynxOS native and target support for 386
5073
5074This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5075to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5076for details).
5077
5078* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5079
5080This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5081mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5082call methods, ...etc.
5083
5084*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5085
5086 * User visible changes:
5087
5088Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5089supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5090other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5091somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5092
5093Filename completion now works.
5094
5095When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5096arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5097addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5098
5099All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5100vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5101should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5102your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5103to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5104
5105 * DEC alpha support
5106
5107This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5108cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5109
5110
5111*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5112
5113 * Testsuite
5114
5115This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5116The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5117via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5118
5119 * C++ demangling
5120
5121'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5122emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5123Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5124disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5125use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5126
5127 * Simulators
5128
5129GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5130So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5131Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5132
5133 * New targets supported
5134
5135H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5136H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5137SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5138Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5139IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5140
5141Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5142version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5143GO32 memory extender.
5144
5145 * New remote protocols
5146
5147MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5148
5149 * New source languages supported
5150
5151This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5152used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5153into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5154
5155
5156*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5157
5158 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5159
5160GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5161version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5162University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5163compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5164format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5165(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5166
5167Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5168
5169 * Faster and better demangling
5170
5171We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5172demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5173character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5174only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5175This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5176increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5177symbol lookups.
5178
5179`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5180from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5181compiler does not actually implement.
5182
5183 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5184
5185In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5186inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5187recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5188very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5189The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5190circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5191fix.
5192
5193The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5194release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5195
5196 * Improved configure script
5197
5198The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5199you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5200host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5201done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5202
5203We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5204version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5205`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5206The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5207only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5208We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5209
5210 * Documentation improvements
5211
5212There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5213produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5214before submitting changes.
5215
5216The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5217M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5218`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5219you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5220a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5221
5222*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5223We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5224been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5225or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5226`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5227around this problem.
5228
5229 * New features
5230
5231GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5232the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5233`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5234the target program.
5235
5236The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5237how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5238
5239 * New native hosts supported
5240
5241HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5242386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5243
5244 * New targets supported
5245
5246AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5247
5248 * New file formats supported
5249
5250BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5251HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5252
5253 * Major bug fixes
5254
5255Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5256
5257We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5258printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5259
5260We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5261for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5262release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5263
5264You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5265will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5266
5267We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5268for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5269especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5270libraries.
5271
5272The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5273information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5274command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5275any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5276when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5277
5278 * Internal improvements
5279
5280GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5281debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5282
5283GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5284Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5285symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5286contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5287shared code that handles any of them.
5288
5289 * New command line options
5290
5291We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5292
5293 * Mmalloc licensing
5294
5295The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5296General Public License.
5297
5298*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5299
5300 * Host/native/target split
5301
5302GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5303hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5304target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5305local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5306ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5307
5308The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5309GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5310is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5311code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5312any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5313built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5314handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5315
5316GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5317It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5318plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5319
5320 * New hosts supported
5321
5322HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5323386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5324386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5325
5326 * New targets supported
5327
5328Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
532968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5330
5331 * New native hosts supported
5332
5333386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5334 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5335386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5336
5337 * New file formats supported
5338
5339BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5340supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5341format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5342
5343 * New commands
5344
5345`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5346`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5347These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5348
5349`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5350
5351You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5352scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5353prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5354executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5355
5356 * C++ improvements
5357
5358We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5359info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5360symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5361
5362Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5363
5364 * Major bug fixes
5365
5366The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5367fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5368by the compiler.
5369
5370We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5371support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5372
5373John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5374slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5375that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5376purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5377the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5378mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5379
5380Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5381about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5382completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5383we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5384
5385 * AMD 29k support
5386
5387A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5388specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5389calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5390usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5391in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5392
5393We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5394Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5395of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5396resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5397
5398 * Remote interfaces
5399
5400We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5401with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5402message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5403This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5404needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5405breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5406each instruction being stepped through.
5407
5408The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5409registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5410
5411There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5412find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5413Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5414processor with a serial port.
5415
5416 * Configuration
5417
5418Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5419`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5420supported, and what files each one uses.
5421
5422 * Library changes
5423
5424There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5425disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5426Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5427disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5428
5429The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5430Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5431can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5432grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5433
5434 * Documentation
5435
5436The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5437reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5438as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5439encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5440system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5441bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5442
5443And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5444
5445
5446*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5447
5448 * Better support for C++ function names
5449
5450GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5451names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5452(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5453single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5454Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5455
5456GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5457the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5458You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5459lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5460for the list of formats.
5461
5462 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5463
5464Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5465C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5466directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5467can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5468usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5469about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5470this problem.)
5471
5472 * New 'maintenance' command
5473
5474All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5475the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5476can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5477
5478 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5479 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5480 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5481 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5482 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5483 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5484
5485The following commands are new:
5486
5487 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5488 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5489 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5490
5491 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5492
5493We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5494(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5495be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5496read after argv processing.
5497
5498 * New hosts supported
5499
5500Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5501
55241689 5502GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
5503
5504We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5505is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5506for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5507masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5508fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5509It costs extra.
5510
5511 * New targets supported
5512
5513Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5514
5515 * More smarts about finding #include files
5516
5517GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5518all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5519greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5520especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5521the one that contains your sources.
5522
5523We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5524breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5525try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5526
5527 * Interesting infernals change
5528
5529GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5530section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5531target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5532stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5533
5534 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5535
5536There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5537 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5538 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5539
5540See the ChangeLog for details.
5541
5542*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5543
5544 * New machines supported (host and target)
5545
5546IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5547
5548SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5549
5550 * New malloc package
5551
5552GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5553Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5554capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5555This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5556pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5557more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5558
5559 * info proc
5560
5561The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5562'help info proc' for details.
5563
5564 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5565
5566The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5567Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5568possible.
5569
5570 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5571
5572Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5573support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5574conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5575environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5576that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5577in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5578
5579 * Cross byte order fixes
5580
5581Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5582targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5583
5584 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5585
5586If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5587system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5588`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5589program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5590called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5591Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5592and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5593the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5594option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5595starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5596
5597You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5598the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5599information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5600slower, but makes future operations faster.
5601
5602The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5603build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5604A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5605use is:
5606
5607 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5608
5609The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5610It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5611shared across multiple host platforms.
5612
5613 * longjmp() handling
5614
5615GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5616siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5617all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5618platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5619
5620 * Solaris 2.0
5621
5622Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5623this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5624reading symbols.
5625
5626 * Bug fixes
5627
5628As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5629People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5630crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5631
5632*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5633
5634 * New machines supported (host and target)
5635
5636SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5637 (except core files)
5638BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5639Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5640
5641 * New machines supported (target)
5642
5643AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5644
5645 * C++ support
5646
5647GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5648The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5649per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5650
5651GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5652`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5653extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5654good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5655will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5656released.
5657
5658 * New features for SVR4
5659
5660GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5661shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5662only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5663
5664The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5665on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5666it prints the address mappings of the process.
5667
5668If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5669bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5670
5671 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5672
5673Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5674now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5675skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5676make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5677same code linked statically.
5678
5679 * New Getopt
5680
5681GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5682version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5683continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5684Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5685added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5686future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5687
5688 * Bugs fixed
5689
5690The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5691Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5692See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5693
5694
5695*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5696
5697 * New machines supported (host and target)
5698
5699Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5700NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5701Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5702
5703 * Almost SCO Unix support
5704
5705We had hoped to support:
5706SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5707(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5708that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5709about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5710
5711 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5712
5713GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5714debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5715is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5716send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5717reqired (if any).
5718
5719 * New Readline
5720
5721GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5722is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5723required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5724
5725 * Bugs fixed
5726
5727The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5728Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5729See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5730
5731 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5732
5733GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5734supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5735symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5736
5737Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5738mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5739debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5740mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5741version 2.
5742
5743Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5744really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5745line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5746variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5747situation somewhat.
5748
5749When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5750However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5751methods.
5752
5753We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5754DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5755encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5756
5757
5758*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5759
5760 * Improved configuration
5761
5762Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5763Porting BFD is simpler.
5764
5765 * Stepping improved
5766
5767The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5768of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5769in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5770function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5771
5772 * Bug fixing
5773
5774Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5775
5776 * New host supported (not target)
5777
5778Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5779
5780
5781*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5782
5783 * Multiple source language support
5784
5785GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5786It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5787and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5788language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5789You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5790`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5791
5792 * GDB and Modula-2
5793
5794GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5795currently under development at the State University of New York at
5796Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5797continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5798
5799Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5800debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5801symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5802
5803There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5804in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5805
5806 * set write on/off
5807
5808GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5809a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5810the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5811by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5812effect immediately.
5813
5814 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5815
5816When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5817shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5818The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5819examining core files.
5820
5821 * set listsize
5822
5823You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5824The default is 10.
5825
5826 * New machines supported (host and target)
5827
5828SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5829Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5830Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5831
5832 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5833
5834IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5835
5836 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5837
5838AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5839AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5840Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5841
5842 * New remote interfaces
5843
5844AMD 29000 Adapt
5845AMD 29000 Minimon
5846
5847
5848*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5849
5850 * New Facilities
5851
5852Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5853
5854Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5855target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5856is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5857remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5858remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5859also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5860using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5861stub on the target system.
5862
5863New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5864
5865GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5866library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5867object file types such as a.out and coff.
5868
5869There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5870refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5871
5872
5873 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5874
5875All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5876by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5877
5878For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5879``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5880Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5881
5882What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5883print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5884will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5885all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5886
5887confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5888 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5889 it is already running. Default is ON.
5890
5891editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5892 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5893 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5894 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5895 Default is ON.
5896
5897history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5898 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5899 or the value of the environment variable
5900 GDBHISTFILE.
5901
5902history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5903 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5904 HISTSIZE.
5905
5906history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5907 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5908 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5909
5910history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5911 history expansion will be performed on
5912 command line input. The default is OFF.
5913
5914radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5915 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5916 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5917
5918height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5919 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5920 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5921 variable TERM.
5922
5923width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5924 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5925 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5926 variable TERM.
5927
5928Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5929``set width'' instead.
5930
5931print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5932 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5933 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5934 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5935
5936print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5937 is OFF.
5938
5939print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5940 "raw" form if off.
5941
5942print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5943 like instructions.
5944
5945print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5946
5947
5948 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5949
5950The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5951new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5952are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5953window.
5954
5955
5956 * Support for Shared Libraries
5957
5958GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5959Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5960before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5961happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5962At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5963from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5964shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5965It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5966
5967sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5968 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5969 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5970
5971info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5972
5973
5974 * Watchpoints
5975
5976A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5977expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5978tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5979quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5980problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5981more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5982
5983watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5984
5985info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5986
5987delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5988disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5989enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5990
5991
5992 * C++ multiple inheritance
5993
5994When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5995for C++ programs.
5996
5997 * C++ exception handling
5998
5999Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6000ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6001the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6002handler's context).
6003
6004catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6005 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6006 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6007
6008info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6009 current stack frame.
6010
6011
6012 * Minor command changes
6013
6014The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6015command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6016is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6017
6018The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6019at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6020frames without printing.
6021
6022 * New directory command
6023
6024'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6025The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6026about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6027with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6028find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6029
6030 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6031
6032For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6033for more details.
6034
6035GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6036two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6037Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6038where the program that you are debugging will run.