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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.4
5
6* New commands
7
8init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
9 only if it doesn't already have a value.
10
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11The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
12
13checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
14
15restart <n> Return the program state to a
16 previously saved state.
17
18info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
19
20delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
21
22set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
23 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
24
25info forks List forks of the user program that
26 are available to be debugged.
27
28fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
29 forks of the user program that are
30 available to be debugged.
31
32delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
33 that are available to be debugged (and
34 kill the forked process).
35
36detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
37 that are available to be debugged (and
38 allow the process to continue).
39
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40* New architecture
41
42Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
43
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44* REMOVED features
45
46The ARM rdi-share module.
47
53e5f3cf 48*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 49
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50* New native configurations
51
02a677ac 52OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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53OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
54
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55* New targets
56
57Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
58
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59* New command line options
60
61--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
62--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
63 the child (debugged) program exited with.
64--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
65 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
66 specified multiple times and in conjunction
67 with the --command (-x) option.
68
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69* Deprecated commands removed
70
71The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
72removed:
73
74 Command Replacement
75 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
76 othernames set arm disassembler
77 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
78 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
79 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
80 regs info registers
81
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82* New BSD user-level threads support
83
84It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
85library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
86configurations are:
87
88FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
89FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
90OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
91
92Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
93are not yet supported.
94
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95* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
96(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
97
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98* REMOVED configurations and files
99
100VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 101Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 102National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 103
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104* New "set print array-indexes" command
105
106After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
107when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
108behavior.
109
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110* VAX floating point support
111
112GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
113
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114* User-defined command support
115
116In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
117to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
118section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
119
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120*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
121
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122* New command line option
123
124GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
125debugging.
126
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127* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
128
129GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
130information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
131by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
132proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
133to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 134
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135* Internationalization
136
137When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
138internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
139continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
140
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141* Ada
142
143Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
144implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
145into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
146
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147* New native configurations
148
149GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
150
151* Remote 'p' packet
152
153GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
154packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
155
156* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
157
158GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
159The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
160features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
161i386 application).
162
163GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
164compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
165continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
166configurations:
167
168hppa-*-hpux
169ia64-*-aix
170mips-*-irix*
171*-*-lynx
172mips-*-linux-gnu
173sds protocol
174xdr protocol
175powerpc bdm protocol
176
177Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
178made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
179
180* OBSOLETE configurations and files
181
182Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
183been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
184configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
185permanently REMOVED.
186
187h8300-*-*
188mcore-*-*
189mn10300-*-*
190ns32k-*-*
191sh64-*-*
192v850-*-*
193
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194*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
195
196* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
197
198When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
199heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
200been fixed.
201
202* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
203
204When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
205fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
206IRIX long double values).
207
208* VAX and "next"
209
210A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
211command. This problem has been fixed.
212
860660cb 213*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 214
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215* Fix for ``many threads''
216
217On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
218rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
219error message:
220
221 ptrace: No such process.
222 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
223
224This problem has been fixed.
225
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226* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
227
228Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
229GDB to dump core).
230
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231* New ``start'' command.
232
233This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
234
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235* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
236
237Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
238live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
239platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
240
241FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
242FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
243NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
244NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
245NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
246OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
247OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
248OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
249OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
250
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251* Signal trampoline code overhauled
252
253Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
254These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
255of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
256call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
257signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
258
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259Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
260features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
261include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 262
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263* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
264
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265* New native configurations
266
97dc871c 267GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 268OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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269OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
270OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 271OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 272NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 273OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 274
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275* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
276
277GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
278The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
279including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
280migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
281compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
282work, was also included.
283
284GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
285module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
286
287h8300-*-*
288mcore-*-*
289mn10300-*-*
290ns32k-*-*
291sh64-*-*
292v850-*-*
293xstormy16-*-*
294
295Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
296made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
297
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298* REMOVED configurations and files
299
300Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
301Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
302Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
303Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
304Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
305AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
306Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
307decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
308riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
309sonymips mips-sony-*
310sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
311
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312*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
313
314* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
315
316The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
317GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
318command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
319program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
320with GDB".
321
322* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
323
324Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
325libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
326cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
327GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
328shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
329the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
330are created.
331
332Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
333
334* Fixed ISO-C build problems
335
336The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
337non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
338compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
339
340* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
341
342Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
343wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
344
345* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
346
347The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
348permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
349systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
350
351* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
352
353Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
354has been updated to use constant array sizes.
355
356* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
357
358GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
359its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
360panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
361
362* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
363
364When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
365by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
366not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
367
faae5abe 368*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 369
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370* Removed --with-mmalloc
371
372Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
373conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
374
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375* Changes in AMD64 configurations
376
377The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
378the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
379and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
380you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
381
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382* Revised SPARC target
383
384The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
385FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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386support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
387from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
388(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 389
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390* New C++ demangler
391
392GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
393names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
394with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
395programs.
396
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397* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
398
399GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
400arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
401encountered these.
402
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403* C++ nested types and namespaces
404
405GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
406improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
407is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
408Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
409namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
410"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
411frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
412if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
413GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
414
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415* New native configurations
416
417NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 418OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 419OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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420OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
421OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 422
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423* New debugging protocols
424
425M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
426
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427* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
428
429The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
430and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
431tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
432
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433* OBSOLETE configurations and files
434
435Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
436been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
437configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
438permanently REMOVED.
439
440Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
441Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
442Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
443Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
444Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
445AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
446Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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447decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
448riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
449sonymips mips-sony-*
450sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 451
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452* REMOVED configurations and files
453
454SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
455SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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456Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
457Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
458H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
459HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
460HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
461HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
462PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 463386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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464Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
465 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
466 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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467SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
468SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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469Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
470Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 471
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472*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
473
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474* Objective-C
475
476Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
477integrated into GDB.
478
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479* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
480
481DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
482information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
483By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
484backtraces.
485
486The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
487have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
488DWARF 2 CFI support.
489
490* Hosted file I/O.
491
492GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
493file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
494remote protocol documentation for details.
495
496* All targets using the new architecture framework.
497
498All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
499architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
500to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
501ppc32 on ppc64).
502
503* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
504
505GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
506per-thread variables.
507
508* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
509
510GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
511GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
512
513* Separate debug info.
514
515GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
516automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
517of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
518system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
519and optional debug files.
520
521* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
522
523DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
524describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
525debugger.
526
527GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
528for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
529
530* Java
531
532A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
533Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
534considered "useable".
535
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536* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
537
538The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
539commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
540kernel.
541
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542* GDB supports logging output to a file
543
544There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
545used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 546
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547* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
548
549The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
550disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
551command.
552
e286caf2 553* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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554
555The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
556registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
557
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558* Profiling support
559
560A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
561be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
562session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
563"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
564data, for more informative profiling results.
565
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566* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
567
568The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
569option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 570"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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571
572Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
573removed.
574
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575Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
576Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
577Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
578 in a subsequent -var-update.
579
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580* New native configurations.
581
582FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
583
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584* Multi-arched targets.
585
b4263afa 586HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 587Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 588
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589* OBSOLETE configurations and files
590
591Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
592been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
593configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
594permanently REMOVED.
595
8b0e5691 596Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 597Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 598H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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599HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
600HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
601HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 602PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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603Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
604 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
605 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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606Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
607Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 608
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609* REMOVED configurations and files
610
611V850EA ISA
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612Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
613IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
614i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
615i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
616i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
617HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
618 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
619 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
620Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
621Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
622Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
623OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
624I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 625
a094c6fb
AC
626* MIPS $fp behavior changed
627
628The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
629the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
630context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
631address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
632The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
633
299ffc64 634*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 635
46248966
AC
636* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
637
638When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
639`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
640in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
641library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
642shared libs like mad''.
643
b9d14705 644* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 645
b9d14705
DJ
646Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
647the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
648arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
649powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 650
e0e9281e
JB
651* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
652
653GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
654and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
655they expand.
656
dd73b9bb
AC
657The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
658invocations in expression, and shows the result.
659
660The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
661macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
662
e0e9281e
JB
663Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
664information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
665your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
666information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
667
2250ee0c
CV
668* Multi-arched targets.
669
6e3ba3b8
JT
670DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
671DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 672NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 673National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
674Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
675Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 676
cd9bfe15 677* New targets.
e33ce519 678
456f8b9d
DB
679Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
680
e33ce519 681
da8ca43d
JT
682* New native configurations
683
684Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 685SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 686MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 687UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 688
cd9bfe15
AC
689* OBSOLETE configurations and files
690
691Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
692been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
693configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
694permanently REMOVED.
695
92eb23c5 696Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 697OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 698IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 699Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 700Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 701Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
702i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
703i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
704i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
705HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
706 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
707 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 708I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 709
db034ac5
AC
710* OBSOLETE languages
711
712CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
713
cd9bfe15
AC
714* REMOVED configurations and files
715
716AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
717A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
718AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
719AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
720AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
721
722testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
723
20f01a46
DH
724* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
725
726This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
727commands. The default is 1024.
728
a5941fbf
MK
729* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
730
731Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
732
89743e04
MS
733* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
734
735These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
736to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
737from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 738
9fb14e79
JB
739* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
740
741The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
742including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
743of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
744
2037aebb
AC
745*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
746
747* New targets.
748
749Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
750
751* Bug fixes
752
753gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
754mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
755Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
756
757gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
758dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
759Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
760
761Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
762Surprisingly enough, it works now.
763By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
764
765i386 hardware watchpoint support:
766avoid misses on second run for some targets.
767By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
768
37057839 769*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 770
1a703748
MS
771* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
772
773This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
774really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
775In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
776target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
777This can be a significant performance improvement on some
778(notably embedded) targets.
779
cefd4ef5
MS
780* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
781
55241689
AC
782This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
783process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
784GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
785hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 786
352ed7b4
MS
787* New command line option
788
789GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
790
791* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
792
793There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
794command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
795a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
796be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
797open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
798issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
799a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
800it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
801GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
802is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
803
fe419ffc
RE
804* Changes in ARM configurations.
805
806Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
807configuration is fully multi-arch.
808
eb7cedd9
MK
809* New native configurations
810
fe419ffc 811ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 812x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 813AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 814Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 815
c9f63e6b
CV
816* New targets
817
818Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
819
9b4ff276
AC
820* OBSOLETE configurations and files
821
822Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
823been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
824configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
825permanently REMOVED.
826
827AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
828A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
829AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
830AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
831AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
832
b4ceaee6 833testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 834
e2caac18
AC
835* REMOVED configurations and files
836
837TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 838WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
839PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
840PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
841PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 842Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
843Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
844 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 845SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 846Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
847Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
848ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 849Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 850
c2a727fa
TT
851* Changes to command line processing
852
853The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
854for the inferior from gdb's command line.
855
467d8519
TT
856* Changes to key bindings
857
858There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
859
7072a954
AC
860*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
861
862Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
863
864Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
865corrupted.
866
867Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
868
869Numerous documentation fixes.
870
871Numerous testsuite fixes.
872
34f47bc4 873*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
874
875* New native configurations
876
877Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
878x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 879MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
880MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
881ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 882s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 883
bf64bfd6
AC
884* New targets
885
def90278 886Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 887CRIS cris-axis
55241689 888UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 889
17e78a56 890* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
891
892x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 893Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
894Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
895 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
896TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
897WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 898Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
899PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
900PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
901PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 902SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
903Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
904ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 905Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 906
17e78a56
AC
907stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
908kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
909
7fcca85b
AC
910Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
911been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
912configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
913permanently REMOVED.
914
a196c81c 915* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
916
917Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
918Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
919Pyramid pyramid-*-*
920ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
921Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 922ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 923
6d6b80e5 924* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 925
6d6b80e5 926GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
927sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
928present.
929
bf64bfd6
AC
930* Other news:
931
e23194cb
EZ
932* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
933
934* The MI enabled by default.
935
936The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
937revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
938engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
939using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
940which is now deprecated.
941
942* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
943
944GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
945main features are supported:
946
947 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
948
949 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
950 extension;
951
952 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
953
954 - a Pascal expression parser.
955
956However, some important features are not yet supported.
957
958 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
959
960 - there are some problems with boolean types;
961
962 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
963 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
964
965 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
966
967 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
968
969* Changes in completion.
970
971Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
972to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
973users expect at the shell prompt.
974
975Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
976`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
977program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
978files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
979be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
980considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
981name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
982
983`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
984
985* New platform-independent commands:
986
987It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
988hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
989documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
990
991* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
992
d7275149
MK
993Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
994revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
995many threads as your system allows you to have.
996
e23194cb
EZ
997Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
998
d7275149
MK
999Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1000multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1001
1002* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1003
1004Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1005
e23194cb
EZ
1006GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1007debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1008supported.)
1009
1010* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1011
1012Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1013breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1014implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1015put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1016and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1017registers.
1018
1019The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1020debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1021watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1022
1023* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1024
1025New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1026the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1027
1028New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1029display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1030IDT.
1031
1032New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1033from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1034New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1035a given linear address.
1036
1037GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1038program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1039which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1040
1041DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1042
6c56c069
EZ
1043It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1044
e23194cb
EZ
1045* Changes in documentation.
1046
1047All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1048Documentation License.
1049
1050Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1051manual.
1052
1053TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1054
1055Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1056manual.
1057
1058The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1059documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1060hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1061
5d6640b1
AC
1062* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1063
1064The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1065``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1066contents of this file.
1067
1a1d8446
AC
1068* gdba.el deleted
1069
1070GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1071
9debab2f 1072*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1073
c63ce875
EZ
1074* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1075
1076Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1077programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1078displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1079greater level of detail.
1080
1081* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1082
1083It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1084bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1085on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1086written.
1087
1088* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1089
1090The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1091necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1092machines ``out of the box''.
1093
1094The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1095possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1096signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1097would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1098interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1099
1100It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1101standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1102even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1103and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1104terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1105
1106The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1107enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1108also works.
1109
1110DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1111GDB.
1112
1113It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1114directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1115times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1116breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1117
ed9a39eb
JM
1118* New native configurations
1119
1120ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1121PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1122
7a292a7a
SS
1123* New targets
1124
96baa820 1125Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1126x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1127PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1128TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1129
085dd6e6
JM
1130* OBSOLETE configurations
1131
1132Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1133Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1134Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1135ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1136Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1137
9debab2f
AC
1138Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1139but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1140these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1141be permanently REMOVED.
1142
5330533d
SS
1143* Gould support removed
1144
1145Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1146
bc9e5bbf
AC
1147* New features for SVR4
1148
1149On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1150without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1151load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1152
1153* Many C++ enhancements
1154
1155C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1156in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1157
adf40b2e
JM
1158* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1159
1160A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1161sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1162with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1163``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1164
1165 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1166 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1167
43e526b9
JM
1168* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1169
1170A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1171expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1172instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1173
1174The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1175added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1176
96baa820
JM
1177* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1178
1179The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1180``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1181include ``set remote P-packet''.
1182
11cf8741
JM
1183* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1184
1185The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1186accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1187``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1188
7876dd43
DB
1189* ``apropos'' command added.
1190
1191The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1192documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1193try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1194
bc9e5bbf
AC
1195* New MI interface
1196
1197A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1198interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1199process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1200"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1201enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1202
1203 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1204
c906108c
SS
1205*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1206
1207* New native configurations
1208
1209HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1210HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1211M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1212
1213* New targets
1214
1215Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1216Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1217Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1218
1219* OBSOLETE configurations
1220
1221Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1222
1223Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1224but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1225these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1226be permanently REMOVED.
1227
1228* ANSI/ISO C
1229
1230As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1231buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1232containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1233use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1234available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1235configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1236information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1237already.
1238
1239* Readline 2.2
1240
1241GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1242
1243* set extension-language
1244
1245You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1246languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1247you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1248 set extension-language .c c++
1249The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1250and their associated languages.
1251
1252* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1253
1254When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1255you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1256PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1257
1258 set processor NAME
1259
1260sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1261following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1262
1263 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1264 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1265 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1266 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1267 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1268 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1269 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1270 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1271 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1272 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1273 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1274
1275At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1276special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1277registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1278only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1279
1280* HP-UX support
1281
1282Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1283more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1284library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1285support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1286for xdb and dbx commands.
1287
1288* Catchpoints
1289
1290HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1291generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1292to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1293
1294This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1295argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1296output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1297
1298* Debugging across forks
1299
1300On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1301in the inferior.
1302
1303* TUI
1304
1305HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1306it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1307configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1308
1309* GDB remote protocol additions
1310
1311A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1312Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1313fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1314allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1315
1316For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1317full 64-bit address. The command
1318
1319 set remoteaddresssize 32
1320
1321can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1322the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1323will be discarded.
1324
1325In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1326command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1327
1328 maint packet heythere
1329
1330sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1331disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1332time.
1333
1334The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1335target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1336downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1337
1338* Tracing can collect general expressions
1339
1340You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1341further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1342doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1343
1344* mask-address variable for Mips
1345
1346For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1347a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1348of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1349
1350* Higher serial baud rates
1351
1352GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1353230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1354to achieve all of these rates.)
1355
1356* i960 simulator
1357
1358The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1359builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1360
1361
1362*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1363
1364* New native configurations
1365
1366Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1367Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1368Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1369PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1370PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1371Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1372Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1373
1374* New targets
1375
1376Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1377Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1378Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1379Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1380MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1381MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1382MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1383Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1384Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1385Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1386NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1387
1388* New debugging protocols
1389
1390ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1391M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1392DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1393PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1394PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1395Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1396
1397* DWARF 2
1398
1399All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1400format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1401information.
1402
1403* Java frontend
1404
1405GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1406only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1407
1408* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1409
1410For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1411loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1412locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1413
1414* Live range splitting
1415
1416GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1417range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1418more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1419
1420* Hurd support
1421
1422GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1423updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1424
1425* ARM Thumb support
1426
1427GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1428instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1429instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1430accordingly.
1431
1432* MIPS16 support
1433
1434GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1435instruction set.
1436
1437* Overlay support
1438
1439GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1440linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1441will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1442control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1443additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1444in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1445
1446* info symbol
1447
1448The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1449the symbol at the specified address.
1450
1451* Trace support
1452
1453The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1454asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1455extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1456includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1457file tracepoint.c for more details.
1458
1459* MIPS simulator
1460
1461Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1462by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1463of most MIPS variants.
1464
1465* Sparc simulator
1466
1467Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1468by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1469Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1470
1471* set architecture
1472
1473For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1474basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1475architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1476the possible architectures.
1477
1478*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1479
1480* New native configurations
1481
1482Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1483M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1484PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1485PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1486PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1487RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1488
1489* New targets
1490
1491ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1492I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1493MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1494MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1495PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1496Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1497Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1498
1499* PowerPC simulator
1500
1501The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1502contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1503PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1504basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1505performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1506
1507* Solaris 2.5
1508
1509GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1510
1511* Windows 95/NT native
1512
1513GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1514To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1515which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1516Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1517ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1518
1519* dont-repeat command
1520
1521If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1522command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1523useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1524extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1525
1526* Send break instead of ^C
1527
1528The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1529rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1530GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1531
1532* Remote protocol timeout
1533
1534The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1535that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1536to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1537
1538* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1539
1540By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1541loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1542stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1543when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1544in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1545
1546Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1547/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1548automatically on hpux10.
1549
1550* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1551
1552Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1553
1554* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1555
1556When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1557may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1558the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1559every character. The default value is 1050.
1560
1561* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1562
1563If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1564a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1565replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1566details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1567remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1568to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1569
1570* Speedups for remote debugging
1571
1572GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1573the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1574and more efficient S-record downloading.
1575
1576* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1577
1578GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1579Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1580
1581*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1582
1583* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1584
1585The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1586can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1587
1588* Remote targets use caching
1589
1590Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1591remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1592it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1593debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1594off' turns the the data cache off.
1595
1596* Remote targets may have threads
1597
1598The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1599in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1600gdb/remote.c for details.
1601
1602* NetROM support
1603
1604If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1605support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1606acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1607write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1608support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1609another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1610sequence is something like
1611
1612 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1613 load <prog>
1614 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1615
1616* Macintosh host
1617
1618GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1619may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1620it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1621available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1622device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1623directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1624scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1625mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1626
1627* Autoconf
1628
1629GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1630but does simplify configuration and building.
1631
1632* hpux10
1633
1634GDB now supports hpux10.
1635
1636*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1637
1638* New native configurations
1639
1640x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1641x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1642NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1643Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1644
1645* New targets
1646
1647A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1648HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1649CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1650PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1651WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1652
1653* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1654
1655GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1656possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1657filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1658the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1659if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1660
1661* Arguments to user-defined commands
1662
1663User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1664Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1665trivial example:
1666define adder
1667 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1668
1669To execute the command use:
1670adder 1 2 3
1671
1672Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1673Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1674use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1675
1676* New `if' and `while' commands
1677
1678This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1679commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1680expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1681execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1682terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1683`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1684if the expression is zero.
1685
1686* Fortran source language mode
1687
1688GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1689Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1690variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1691with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1692Fortran compilers.
1693
1694* Better HPUX support
1695
1696Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1697running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1698processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1699for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1700that behavior do the following before running the program:
1701
1702 adb -w a.out
1703 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1704 control-d
1705
1706This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1707To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1708
1709 adb -w a.out
1710 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1711 control-d
1712
1713You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1714the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1715external linkage.
1716
1717GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1718HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1719
1720* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1721
1722You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1723commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1724current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1725"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1726associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1727configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1728
1729* New DOS host serial code
1730
1731This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1732no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1733a PC's serial port.
1734
1735*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1736
1737* New "complete" command
1738
1739This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1740were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1741
1742* Trailing space optional in prompt
1743
1744"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1745allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1746
1747* Breakpoint hit counts
1748
1749"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1750has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1751can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1752to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1753less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1754that breakpoint.
1755
1756* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1757
1758"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1759an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1760arrays actually contain only short strings.
1761
1762* Shared library breakpoints
1763
1764In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1765breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1766
1767* Hardware watchpoints
1768
1769There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1770targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1771
55241689 1772Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1773
1774* Annotations
1775
1776Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1777and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1778
1779* Improved Irix 5 support
1780
1781GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1782
1783* Improved HPPA support
1784
1785GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1786
1787* New native configurations
1788
1789Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1790HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1791Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1792RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1793
1794* New targets
1795
1796OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1797MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1798Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1799
1800* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1801
1802There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1803This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1804
1805* Fixes
1806
1807As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1808and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1809
1810*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1811
1812* Irix 5 is now supported
1813
1814* HPPA support
1815
1816GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1817to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1818GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1819of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1820can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1821
1822
1823*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1824
1825* User visible changes:
1826
1827* Remote Debugging
1828
1829The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1830target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1831debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1832integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1833debugging info for the mips target).
1834
1835* DEC Alpha native support
1836
1837GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1838debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1839work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1840Alpha-specific notes.
1841
1842* Preliminary thread implementation
1843
1844GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1845
1846* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1847
1848This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1849to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1850for details).
1851
1852* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1853
1854This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1855mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1856call methods, ...etc.
1857
1858*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1859
1860 * User visible changes:
1861
1862Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1863supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1864other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1865somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1866
1867Filename completion now works.
1868
1869When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1870arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1871addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1872
1873All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1874vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1875should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1876your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1877to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1878
1879 * DEC alpha support
1880
1881This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1882cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1883
1884
1885*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1886
1887 * Testsuite
1888
1889This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1890The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1891via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1892
1893 * C++ demangling
1894
1895'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1896emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1897Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1898disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1899use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1900
1901 * Simulators
1902
1903GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1904So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1905Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1906
1907 * New targets supported
1908
1909H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1910H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1911SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1912Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1913IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1914
1915Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1916version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1917GO32 memory extender.
1918
1919 * New remote protocols
1920
1921MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1922
1923 * New source languages supported
1924
1925This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1926used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1927into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1928
1929
1930*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1931
1932 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1933
1934GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1935version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1936University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1937compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1938format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1939(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1940
1941Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1942
1943 * Faster and better demangling
1944
1945We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1946demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1947character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1948only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1949This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1950increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1951symbol lookups.
1952
1953`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1954from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1955compiler does not actually implement.
1956
1957 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1958
1959In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1960inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1961recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1962very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1963The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1964circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1965fix.
1966
1967The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1968release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1969
1970 * Improved configure script
1971
1972The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1973you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1974host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1975done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1976
1977We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1978version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1979`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1980The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1981only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1982We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1983
1984 * Documentation improvements
1985
1986There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1987produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1988before submitting changes.
1989
1990The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1991M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1992`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1993you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1994a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1995
1996*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1997We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1998been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1999or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2000`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2001around this problem.
2002
2003 * New features
2004
2005GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2006the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2007`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2008the target program.
2009
2010The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2011how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2012
2013 * New native hosts supported
2014
2015HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2016386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2017
2018 * New targets supported
2019
2020AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2021
2022 * New file formats supported
2023
2024BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2025HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2026
2027 * Major bug fixes
2028
2029Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2030
2031We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2032printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2033
2034We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2035for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2036release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2037
2038You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2039will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2040
2041We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2042for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2043especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2044libraries.
2045
2046The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2047information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2048command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2049any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2050when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2051
2052 * Internal improvements
2053
2054GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2055debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2056
2057GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2058Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2059symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2060contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2061shared code that handles any of them.
2062
2063 * New command line options
2064
2065We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2066
2067 * Mmalloc licensing
2068
2069The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2070General Public License.
2071
2072*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2073
2074 * Host/native/target split
2075
2076GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2077hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2078target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2079local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2080ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2081
2082The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2083GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2084is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2085code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2086any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2087built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2088handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2089
2090GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2091It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2092plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2093
2094 * New hosts supported
2095
2096HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2097386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2098386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2099
2100 * New targets supported
2101
2102Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
210368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2104
2105 * New native hosts supported
2106
2107386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2108 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2109386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2110
2111 * New file formats supported
2112
2113BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2114supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2115format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2116
2117 * New commands
2118
2119`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2120`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2121These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2122
2123`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2124
2125You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2126scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2127prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2128executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2129
2130 * C++ improvements
2131
2132We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2133info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2134symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2135
2136Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2137
2138 * Major bug fixes
2139
2140The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2141fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2142by the compiler.
2143
2144We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2145support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2146
2147John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2148slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2149that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2150purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2151the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2152mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2153
2154Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2155about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2156completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2157we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2158
2159 * AMD 29k support
2160
2161A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2162specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2163calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2164usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2165in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2166
2167We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2168Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2169of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2170resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2171
2172 * Remote interfaces
2173
2174We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2175with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2176message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2177This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2178needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2179breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2180each instruction being stepped through.
2181
2182The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2183registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2184
2185There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2186find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2187Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2188processor with a serial port.
2189
2190 * Configuration
2191
2192Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2193`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2194supported, and what files each one uses.
2195
2196 * Library changes
2197
2198There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2199disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2200Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2201disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2202
2203The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2204Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2205can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2206grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2207
2208 * Documentation
2209
2210The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2211reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2212as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2213encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2214system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2215bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2216
2217And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2218
2219
2220*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2221
2222 * Better support for C++ function names
2223
2224GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2225names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2226(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2227single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2228Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2229
2230GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2231the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2232You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2233lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2234for the list of formats.
2235
2236 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2237
2238Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2239C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2240directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2241can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2242usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2243about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2244this problem.)
2245
2246 * New 'maintenance' command
2247
2248All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2249the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2250can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2251
2252 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2253 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2254 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2255 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2256 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2257 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2258
2259The following commands are new:
2260
2261 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2262 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2263 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2264
2265 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2266
2267We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2268(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2269be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2270read after argv processing.
2271
2272 * New hosts supported
2273
2274Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2275
55241689 2276GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2277
2278We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2279is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2280for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2281masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2282fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2283It costs extra.
2284
2285 * New targets supported
2286
2287Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2288
2289 * More smarts about finding #include files
2290
2291GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2292all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2293greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2294especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2295the one that contains your sources.
2296
2297We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2298breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2299try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2300
2301 * Interesting infernals change
2302
2303GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2304section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2305target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2306stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2307
2308 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2309
2310There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2311 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2312 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2313
2314See the ChangeLog for details.
2315
2316*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2317
2318 * New machines supported (host and target)
2319
2320IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2321
2322SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2323
2324 * New malloc package
2325
2326GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2327Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2328capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2329This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2330pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2331more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2332
2333 * info proc
2334
2335The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2336'help info proc' for details.
2337
2338 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2339
2340The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2341Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2342possible.
2343
2344 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2345
2346Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2347support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2348conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2349environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2350that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2351in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2352
2353 * Cross byte order fixes
2354
2355Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2356targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2357
2358 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2359
2360If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2361system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2362`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2363program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2364called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2365Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2366and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2367the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2368option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2369starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2370
2371You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2372the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2373information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2374slower, but makes future operations faster.
2375
2376The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2377build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2378A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2379use is:
2380
2381 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2382
2383The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2384It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2385shared across multiple host platforms.
2386
2387 * longjmp() handling
2388
2389GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2390siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2391all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2392platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2393
2394 * Solaris 2.0
2395
2396Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2397this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2398reading symbols.
2399
2400 * Bug fixes
2401
2402As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2403People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2404crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2405
2406*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2407
2408 * New machines supported (host and target)
2409
2410SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2411 (except core files)
2412BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2413Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2414
2415 * New machines supported (target)
2416
2417AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2418
2419 * C++ support
2420
2421GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2422The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2423per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2424
2425GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2426`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2427extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2428good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2429will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2430released.
2431
2432 * New features for SVR4
2433
2434GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2435shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2436only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2437
2438The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2439on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2440it prints the address mappings of the process.
2441
2442If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2443bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2444
2445 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2446
2447Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2448now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2449skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2450make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2451same code linked statically.
2452
2453 * New Getopt
2454
2455GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2456version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2457continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2458Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2459added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2460future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2461
2462 * Bugs fixed
2463
2464The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2465Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2466See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2467
2468
2469*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2470
2471 * New machines supported (host and target)
2472
2473Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2474NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2475Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2476
2477 * Almost SCO Unix support
2478
2479We had hoped to support:
2480SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2481(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2482that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2483about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2484
2485 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2486
2487GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2488debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2489is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2490send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2491reqired (if any).
2492
2493 * New Readline
2494
2495GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2496is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2497required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2498
2499 * Bugs fixed
2500
2501The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2502Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2503See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2504
2505 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2506
2507GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2508supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2509symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2510
2511Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2512mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2513debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2514mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2515version 2.
2516
2517Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2518really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2519line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2520variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2521situation somewhat.
2522
2523When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2524However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2525methods.
2526
2527We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2528DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2529encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2530
2531
2532*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2533
2534 * Improved configuration
2535
2536Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2537Porting BFD is simpler.
2538
2539 * Stepping improved
2540
2541The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2542of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2543in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2544function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2545
2546 * Bug fixing
2547
2548Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2549
2550 * New host supported (not target)
2551
2552Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2553
2554
2555*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2556
2557 * Multiple source language support
2558
2559GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2560It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2561and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2562language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2563You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2564`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2565
2566 * GDB and Modula-2
2567
2568GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2569currently under development at the State University of New York at
2570Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2571continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2572
2573Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2574debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2575symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2576
2577There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2578in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2579
2580 * set write on/off
2581
2582GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2583a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2584the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2585by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2586effect immediately.
2587
2588 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2589
2590When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2591shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2592The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2593examining core files.
2594
2595 * set listsize
2596
2597You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2598The default is 10.
2599
2600 * New machines supported (host and target)
2601
2602SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2603Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2604Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2605
2606 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2607
2608IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2609
2610 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2611
2612AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2613AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2614Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2615
2616 * New remote interfaces
2617
2618AMD 29000 Adapt
2619AMD 29000 Minimon
2620
2621
2622*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2623
2624 * New Facilities
2625
2626Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2627
2628Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2629target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2630is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2631remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2632remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2633also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2634using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2635stub on the target system.
2636
2637New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2638
2639GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2640library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2641object file types such as a.out and coff.
2642
2643There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2644refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2645
2646
2647 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2648
2649All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2650by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2651
2652For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2653``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2654Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2655
2656What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2657print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2658will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2659all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2660
2661confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2662 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2663 it is already running. Default is ON.
2664
2665editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2666 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2667 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2668 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2669 Default is ON.
2670
2671history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2672 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2673 or the value of the environment variable
2674 GDBHISTFILE.
2675
2676history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2677 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2678 HISTSIZE.
2679
2680history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2681 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2682 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2683
2684history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2685 history expansion will be performed on
2686 command line input. The default is OFF.
2687
2688radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2689 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2690 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2691
2692height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2693 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2694 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2695 variable TERM.
2696
2697width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2698 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2699 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2700 variable TERM.
2701
2702Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2703``set width'' instead.
2704
2705print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2706 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2707 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2708 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2709
2710print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2711 is OFF.
2712
2713print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2714 "raw" form if off.
2715
2716print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2717 like instructions.
2718
2719print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2720
2721
2722 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2723
2724The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2725new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2726are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2727window.
2728
2729
2730 * Support for Shared Libraries
2731
2732GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2733Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2734before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2735happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2736At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2737from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2738shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2739It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2740
2741sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2742 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2743 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2744
2745info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2746
2747
2748 * Watchpoints
2749
2750A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2751expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2752tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2753quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2754problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2755more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2756
2757watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2758
2759info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2760
2761delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2762disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2763enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2764
2765
2766 * C++ multiple inheritance
2767
2768When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2769for C++ programs.
2770
2771 * C++ exception handling
2772
2773Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2774ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2775the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2776handler's context).
2777
2778catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2779 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2780 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2781
2782info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2783 current stack frame.
2784
2785
2786 * Minor command changes
2787
2788The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2789command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2790is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2791
2792The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2793at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2794frames without printing.
2795
2796 * New directory command
2797
2798'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2799The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2800about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2801with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2802find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2803
2804 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2805
2806For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2807for more details.
2808
2809GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2810two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2811Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2812where the program that you are debugging will run.