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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.0
5
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6* New targets
7
8Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
9
10* New Simulators
11
12Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
13
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14* Multi-program debugging.
15
16 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
17 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
18 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
19 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
20 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
21 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
22 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
23 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
24
25* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
26
27add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
28 Add a new inferior.
29
30clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
31 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
32 inferior has loaded.
33
34remove-inferior ID
35 Remove an inferior.
36
37maint info program-spaces
38 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
39
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40set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
41show remote interrupt-sequence
42 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
43 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
44 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
45 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
46 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
47
48set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
49show remote interrupt-on-connect
50 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
51 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
52 Linux kernel.
53
54set remotebreak [on | off]
55show remotebreak
56Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
57
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58* New options
59
60set follow-exec-mode new|same
61show follow-exec-mode
62 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
63 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
64 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
65
abc7453d 66*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 67
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68* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
69dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
70them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
71for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
72"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
73
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74* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
75breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
76or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
77the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
78for tracepoint actions.
79
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80* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
81in hex as well as in symbolic form."
82
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83* Process record and replay
84
85 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
86 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
87 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
88 execute commands.
89
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90* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
91step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
92set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
93reverse execution.
94
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95* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
96feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
972.6.28 or later.
98
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99* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
100target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
101char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
102literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
103U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
104`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
105system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
106the installation instructions for more information.
107
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108* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
109remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
110with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
111the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
112
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113* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
114and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
115
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116* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
117now complete on file names.
118
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119* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
120completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
121For instance, consider:
122
123 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
124 # struct example variable;
125 (gdb) p variable.
126
127If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
128completions will be "f1" and "f2".
129
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130* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
131the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
132
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133* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
134operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
135macros.
136
47a3467a 137* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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138the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
139implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
140
141* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
142registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
143can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
144and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 145
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146* New remote packets
147
148qSearch:memory:
149 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
150
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151QStartNoAckMode
152 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
153 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
154 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
155
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156vKill
157 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
158 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
159
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160qXfer:osdata:read
161 Obtains additional operating system information
162
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163qXfer:siginfo:read
164qXfer:siginfo:write
165 Read or write additional signal information.
166
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167* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
168
169 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
170 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
171 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
172
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173* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
174source+assembly.
175
c055b101 176* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 177DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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178
179* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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180and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
181`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 182
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183* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
184with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
185
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186* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
187
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188* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
189
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190* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
191which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
192
1fddbabb 193* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 194list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 195
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196* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
197conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
198have also been fixed.
199
bfb8797a 200* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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201From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
202are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 203
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204* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
205example, given:
206
207 template<typename T> class C { };
208 C<char const *> c;
209
210GDB will now correctly handle all of:
211
212 ptype C<char const *>
213 ptype C<char const*>
214 ptype C<const char *>
215 ptype C<const char*>
216
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217* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
218
219 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
220 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
221
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222 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
223 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
224 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
225
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226 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
227 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
228
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229 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
230 gdbserver.
231
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232 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
233 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
234
235 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
236 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
237 as appropriate.
238
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239* Python scripting
240
241 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
242 available is determined at configure time.
243
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244 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
245
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246* Ada tasking support
247
248 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
249 been introduced:
250
251 info tasks
252 Print the list of Ada tasks.
253 info task N
254 Print detailed information about task number N.
255 task
256 Print the task number of the current task.
257 task N
258 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
259
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260* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
261add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
262
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263* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
264
265 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
266 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
267 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
268 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
269 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
270 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
271 below.
272
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273* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
274"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
275information.
276
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277* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
278to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
279architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
280See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
281more information.
282
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283* Multi-architecture debugging.
284
285 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
286 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
287 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
288 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
289 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
290
291* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
292use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
293Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
294powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
295--enable-targets configure option.
296
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297* Non-stop mode debugging.
298
299 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
300 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
301 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
302 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
303 section in the user manual for more information.
304
305 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
306 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
307 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
308 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
309 extensions on linux targets.
310
d7713ae0 311* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 312
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313catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
314 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
315 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
316 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
317 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
318 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
319 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
320 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
321 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
322
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323find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
324 val1 [, val2, ...]
325 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
326
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327maint set python print-stack
328maint show python print-stack
329 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
330
331python [CODE]
332 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
333
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334macro define
335macro list
336macro undef
337 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
338 interactively.
339
340info os processes
341 Show operating system information about processes.
342
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343info inferiors
344 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
345
346inferior NUM
347 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
348
349detach inferior NUM
350 Detach from inferior number NUM.
351
352kill inferior NUM
353 Kill inferior number NUM.
354
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355* New options
356
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357set spu stop-on-load
358show spu stop-on-load
359 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
360
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361set spu auto-flush-cache
362show spu auto-flush-cache
363 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
364 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
365
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366set sh calling-convention
367show sh calling-convention
368 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
369
e0a3ce09 370set debug timestamp
75feb17d 371show debug timestamp
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372 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
373
374set disassemble-next-line
375show disassemble-next-line
376 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
377 the debuggee stops.
378
379set remote noack-packet
380show remote noack-packet
381 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
382 under "New remote packets."
383
384set remote query-attached-packet
385show remote query-attached-packet
386 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
387
388set remote read-siginfo-object
389show remote read-siginfo-object
390 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
391 packet.
392
393set remote write-siginfo-object
394show remote write-siginfo-object
395 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
396 packet.
397
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398set remote reverse-continue
399show remote reverse-continue
400 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
401
402set remote reverse-step
403show remote reverse-step
404 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
405
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406set displaced-stepping
407show displaced-stepping
408 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
409 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
410 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
411
412set debug displaced
413show debug displaced
414 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
415
416maint set internal-error
417maint show internal-error
418 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
419
420maint set internal-warning
421maint show internal-warning
422 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 423
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424set exec-wrapper
425show exec-wrapper
426unset exec-wrapper
427 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 428
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429set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
430show multiple-symbols
431 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
432 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
433 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
434
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435set breakpoint always-inserted
436show breakpoint always-inserted
437 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
438 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
439 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
440
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441set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
442show arm fallback-mode
443set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
444show arm force-mode
445 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
446 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
447 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
448 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
449
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450set disable-randomization
451show disable-randomization
452 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
453 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
454 multiple debugging sessions.
455
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456set non-stop
457show non-stop
458 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
459 a breakpoint.
460
b3eb342c 461set target-async
d7713ae0 462show target-async
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463 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
464 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
465 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
466 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
467
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468set target-wide-charset
469show target-wide-charset
470 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
471 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
472
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473set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
474show tcp auto-retry
475set tcp connect-timeout
476show tcp connect-timeout
477 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
478 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
479 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
480
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481set libthread-db-search-path
482show libthread-db-search-path
483 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
484 libthread_db.
485
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486set schedule-multiple (on|off)
487show schedule-multiple
488 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
489 the current process.
490
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491set stack-cache
492show stack-cache
493 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
494 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
495 affecting correctness.
496
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497set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
498show interactive-mode
499 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
500 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
501 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
502 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
503 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
504
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505* Removed commands
506
507info forks
508 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
509 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
510 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
511 command.
512
513fork NUM
514 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
515 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
516 alias for the `fork' command.
517
518process PID
519 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
520 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
521 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
522
523delete fork NUM
524 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
525 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
526 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
527 fork' command.
528
529detach fork NUM
530 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
531 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
532 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
533 fork' command.
534
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535* New native configurations
536
537x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
538
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539x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
540
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541* New targets
542
c28c63d8 543Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 544x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 545x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 546S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 547
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548* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
549 (mingw32ce) debugging.
550
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551* Removed commands
552
553catch load
554catch unload
555 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
556
75feb17d 557*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 558
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559* New native configurations
560
561NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 562Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
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563
564* New targets
565
566NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 567Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 568
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569* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
570
571 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
572 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
573 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
574 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
575
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576* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
577(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
578
fe6fbf8b 579* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 580is resolved.
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581
582* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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583including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
584and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 585
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586* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
587accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
588more than one contiguous range of addresses.
589
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590* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
591
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592* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
593registers on PowerPC targets.
594
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595* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
596targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
597
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598* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
599commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
600
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601* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
602extended-remote mode.
603
24a836bd 604* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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605The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
606error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
607The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 608
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609* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
610building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
611target architectures.
612
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613* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
614Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
615now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
616stored in two consecutive float registers.
617
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618* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
619breakpoints now.
620
b93b6ca7 621* Improved support for debugging Ada
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622Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
623include:
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624 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
625 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
626 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
627 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
628 of an assignment
629 - Improved command completion in Ada
630 - Several bug fixes
631
d001be7a
DJ
632* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
633process.
634
a6b151f1
DJ
635* New commands
636
6d53d0af
JB
637set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
638show print frame-arguments
639 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
640 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
641
a6b151f1
DJ
642remote put
643remote get
644remote delete
645 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
646
647* New MI commands
648
649-target-file-put
650-target-file-get
651-target-file-delete
652 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
653
654* New remote packets
655
656vFile:open:
657vFile:close:
658vFile:pread:
659vFile:pwrite:
660vFile:unlink:
661 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 662
2d717e4f
DJ
663vAttach
664 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
665 mode.
666
667vRun
668 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
669
8d5f9c6f 670*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 671
19d378fc
MS
672* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
673bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
674Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
675
3a40aaa0
UW
676* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
677symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
678-Bsymbolic linker option.
679
a6ec25f2
BW
680* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
681recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
682is not supported.
683
6dd09645
JB
684* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
685frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
686
c9bb8148
DJ
687* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
68832-bit or 64-bit register values.
689
0d5de010
DJ
690* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
691
23181151
DJ
692* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
693target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
694a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
695
ea37ba09
DJ
696* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
697automatically displayed as character or string data.
698
699* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
700arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
701as strings.
e1f48ead 702
123dc839
DJ
703* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
704for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 705only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 706
05a4558a
DJ
707* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
708iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 709
7c963485
PA
710* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
711ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
712has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
713
b18be20d
DJ
714* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
715
0ca420ce
UW
716* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
717
31d99776
DJ
718* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
719layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
720segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
721
a4642986
MR
722* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
723immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
724
cfa9d6d9
DJ
725* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
726"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
727packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
728where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
729Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
730
731* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
732(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
733
734* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
735according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 736
c9bb8148
DJ
737* New commands
738
23776285
MR
739set remoteflow
740show remoteflow
741 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
742 when debugging using remote targets.
743
c9bb8148
DJ
744set mem inaccessible-by-default
745show mem inaccessible-by-default
746 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
747 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
748 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
749 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
750 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
751
752set breakpoint auto-hw
753show breakpoint auto-hw
754 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
755 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
756 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
757 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
758 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
759 including "next" and "finish".
760
0e420bd8
JB
761catch exception
762catch exception unhandled
763 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
764
765catch assert
766 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
767
f822c95b
DJ
768set sysroot
769show sysroot
770 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
771 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
772 an alias to "set sysroot".
773
83cc5c53
UW
774info spu
775 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
776 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
777 architecture.
778
bd372731
MK
779* New native configurations
780
781OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
782
23181151
DJ
783set tdesc filename
784unset tdesc filename
785show tdesc filename
786 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
787 not query the target for its built-in description.
788
c9bb8148
DJ
789* New targets
790
54fe9172 791OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 792MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 793Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 794
6dd09645
JB
795* New remote packets
796
797QPassSignals:
798 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
799 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
800
23181151
DJ
801qXfer:features:read:
802 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
803 features.
6dd09645 804
83cc5c53
UW
805qXfer:spu:read:
806qXfer:spu:write:
807 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
808 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
809
cfa9d6d9
DJ
810qXfer:libraries:read:
811 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
812 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
813 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
814 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
815
483367ee
DJ
816* Removed targets
817
818Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
819
d08950c4
UW
820alpha*-*-osf1*
821alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 822d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
823hppa*-*-hiux*
824i[34567]86-ncr-*
825i[34567]86-*-dgux*
826i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
827i[34567]86-*-netware*
828i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
829i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
830i[34567]86-*-sco*
831i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
832i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
833i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
834i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
835i[34567]86-*-unixware*
836i[34567]86-*-sysv*
837i[34567]86-*-isc*
838m68*-cisco*-*
839m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 840mips*-*-pe
483367ee 841rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 842sh*-*-pe
483367ee 843
7ce59000
DJ
844* Other removed features
845
846target abug
847target cpu32bug
848target est
849target rom68k
850
851 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
852
ea35711c
DJ
853target hms
854target e7000
855target sh3
856target sh3e
857
858 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
859 H8/300.
860
861target ocd
862
863 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
864 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
865 interfaces.
866
7ce59000
DJ
867DWARF 1 support
868
869 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
870 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
871
54d61198
DJ
872Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
873
874 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
875 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
876 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
877 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
878
ea35711c
DJ
879MIPS ".pdr" sections
880
881 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
882 in debugging information.
883
884Scheme support
885
886 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
887 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
888
1a69e1e4
DJ
889set mips stack-arg-size
890set mips saved-gpreg-size
891
892 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
893
6dd09645 894*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 895
ca3bf3bd
DJ
896* New targets
897
898Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 899Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 900
6aec2e11
DJ
901* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
902(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
903running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
904
905* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
906Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
907supported.
908
17218d91
DJ
909* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
910broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
911
9ebce043
DJ
912* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
913stub provides the required support.
914
7d3d3ece
DJ
915* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
916longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
917
4f8253f3
JB
918* New commands
919
920set substitute-path
921unset substitute-path
922show substitute-path
923 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
924 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
925 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
926 between compilation and debugging.
927
9fa66fd7
AS
928set trace-commands
929show trace-commands
930 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
931 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
932 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
933
1f5befc1
DJ
934* REMOVED features
935
936The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
937
2ec3381a
DJ
938Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
939an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
940
3d00d119
DJ
941The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
942
be2a5f71
DJ
943* New remote packets
944
945qSupported:
946 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
947 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
948 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
949 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
950 target.
951
0876f84a
DJ
952qXfer:auxv:read:
953 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
954 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
955
9ebce043
DJ
956qXfer:memory-map:read:
957 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
958 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
959
960vFlashErase:
961vFlashWrite:
962vFlashDone:
963 Erase and program a flash memory device.
964
0876f84a
DJ
965* Removed remote packets
966
967qPart:auxv:read:
968 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
969 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
970
e374b601 971*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 972
96309189
MS
973* New targets
974
975Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
976
977Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
978
53e5f3cf
AS
979* New commands
980
981init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
982 only if it doesn't already have a value.
983
ac264b3b
MS
984The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
985
986checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
987
988restart <n> Return the program state to a
989 previously saved state.
990
991info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
992
993delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
994
995set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
996 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
997
998info forks List forks of the user program that
999 are available to be debugged.
1000
1001fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1002 forks of the user program that are
1003 available to be debugged.
1004
1005delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1006 that are available to be debugged (and
1007 kill the forked process).
1008
1009detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1010 that are available to be debugged (and
1011 allow the process to continue).
1012
3950dc3f
NS
1013* New architecture
1014
1015Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1016
0ea3f30e
DJ
1017* Improved Windows host support
1018
1019GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1020native console support, and remote communications using either
1021network sockets or serial ports.
1022
f79daebb
GM
1023* Improved Modula-2 language support
1024
1025GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1026basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1027pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1028printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1029written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1030GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1031
acab6ab2
MM
1032* REMOVED features
1033
1034The ARM rdi-share module.
1035
f4267320
DJ
1036The Netware NLM debug server.
1037
53e5f3cf 1038*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1039
e0ecbda1
MK
1040* New native configurations
1041
02a677ac 1042OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1043OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1044
d64a6579
KB
1045* New targets
1046
1047Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1048
b33a6190
AS
1049* New command line options
1050
1051--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1052--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1053 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1054--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1055 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1056 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1057 with the --command (-x) option.
1058
11dced61
AC
1059* Deprecated commands removed
1060
1061The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1062removed:
1063
1064 Command Replacement
1065 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1066 othernames set arm disassembler
1067 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1068 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1069 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1070 regs info registers
1071
6fe85783
MK
1072* New BSD user-level threads support
1073
1074It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1075library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1076configurations are:
1077
1078FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1079FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1080OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1081
1082Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1083are not yet supported.
1084
5260ca71
MS
1085* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1086(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1087
e84ecc99
AC
1088* REMOVED configurations and files
1089
1090VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1091Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1092National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1093
31e35378
JB
1094* New "set print array-indexes" command
1095
1096After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1097when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1098behavior.
1099
e85e5c83
MK
1100* VAX floating point support
1101
1102GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1103
d91e9901
AS
1104* User-defined command support
1105
1106In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1107to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1108section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1109
f2cb65ca
MC
1110*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1111
f47b1503
AS
1112* New command line option
1113
1114GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1115debugging.
1116
f2cb65ca
MC
1117* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1118
1119GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1120information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1121by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1122proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1123to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1124
d08c0230
AC
1125* Internationalization
1126
1127When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1128internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1129continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1130
117ea3cf
PH
1131* Ada
1132
1133Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1134implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1135into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1136
d08c0230
AC
1137* New native configurations
1138
1139GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1140
1141* Remote 'p' packet
1142
1143GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1144packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1145
1146* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1147
1148GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1149The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1150features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1151i386 application).
1152
1153GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1154compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1155continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1156configurations:
1157
1158hppa-*-hpux
1159ia64-*-aix
1160mips-*-irix*
1161*-*-lynx
1162mips-*-linux-gnu
1163sds protocol
1164xdr protocol
1165powerpc bdm protocol
1166
1167Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1168made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1169
1170* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1171
1172Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1173been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1174configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1175permanently REMOVED.
1176
1177h8300-*-*
1178mcore-*-*
1179mn10300-*-*
1180ns32k-*-*
1181sh64-*-*
1182v850-*-*
1183
ebb7c577
AC
1184*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1185
1186* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1187
1188When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1189heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1190been fixed.
1191
1192* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1193
1194When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1195fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1196IRIX long double values).
1197
1198* VAX and "next"
1199
1200A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1201command. This problem has been fixed.
1202
860660cb 1203*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1204
0dea2468
AC
1205* Fix for ``many threads''
1206
1207On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1208rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1209error message:
1210
1211 ptrace: No such process.
1212 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1213
1214This problem has been fixed.
1215
2c07db7a
AC
1216* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1217
1218Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1219GDB to dump core).
1220
c23968a2
JB
1221* New ``start'' command.
1222
1223This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1224
71009278
MK
1225* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1226
1227Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1228live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1229platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1230
1231FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1232FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1233NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1234NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1235NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1236OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1237OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1238OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1239OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1240
3c0b7db2
AC
1241* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1242
1243Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1244These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1245of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1246call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1247signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1248
73cc75f3
AC
1249Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1250features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1251include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1252
7243600a
BF
1253* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1254
6f606e1c
MK
1255* New native configurations
1256
97dc871c 1257GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1258OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1259OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1260OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1261OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1262NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1263OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1264
a1b461bf
AC
1265* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1266
1267GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1268The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1269including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1270migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1271compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1272work, was also included.
1273
1274GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1275module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1276
1277h8300-*-*
1278mcore-*-*
1279mn10300-*-*
1280ns32k-*-*
1281sh64-*-*
1282v850-*-*
1283xstormy16-*-*
1284
1285Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1286made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1287
3c7012f5
AC
1288* REMOVED configurations and files
1289
1290Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1291Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1292Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1293Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1294Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1295AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1296Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1297decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1298riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1299sonymips mips-sony-*
1300sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1301
e5fe55f7
AC
1302*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1303
1304* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1305
1306The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1307GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1308command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1309program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1310with GDB".
1311
1312* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1313
1314Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1315libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1316cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1317GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1318shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1319the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1320are created.
1321
1322Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1323
1324* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1325
1326The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1327non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1328compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1329
1330* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1331
1332Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1333wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1334
1335* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1336
1337The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1338permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1339systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1340
1341* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1342
1343Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1344has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1345
1346* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1347
1348GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1349its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1350panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1351
1352* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1353
1354When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1355by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1356not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1357
faae5abe 1358*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1359
9175c9a3
MC
1360* Removed --with-mmalloc
1361
1362Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1363conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1364
3cc87ec0
MK
1365* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1366
1367The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1368the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1369and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1370you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1371
f0424ef6
MK
1372* Revised SPARC target
1373
1374The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1375FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1376support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1377from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1378(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1379
59659be2
ILT
1380* New C++ demangler
1381
1382GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1383names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1384with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1385programs.
1386
9e08b29b
DJ
1387* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1388
1389GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1390arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1391encountered these.
1392
8dfe8985
DC
1393* C++ nested types and namespaces
1394
1395GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1396improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1397is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1398Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1399namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1400"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1401frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1402if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1403GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1404
cced5e27
MK
1405* New native configurations
1406
1407NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1408OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1409OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1410OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1411OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1412
b4b4b794
KI
1413* New debugging protocols
1414
1415M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1416
7989c619
AC
1417* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1418
1419The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1420and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1421tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1422
5994185b
AC
1423* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1424
1425Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1426been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1427configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1428permanently REMOVED.
1429
1430Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1431Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1432Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1433Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1434Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1435AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1436Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1437decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1438riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1439sonymips mips-sony-*
1440sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1441
0ddabb4c
AC
1442* REMOVED configurations and files
1443
1444SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1445SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1446Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1447Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1448H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1449HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1450HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1451HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1452PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1453386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1454Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1455 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1456 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1457SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1458SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1459Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1460Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1461
c7f1390e
DJ
1462*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1463
1fe43d45
AC
1464* Objective-C
1465
1466Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1467integrated into GDB.
1468
e6beb428
AC
1469* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1470
1471DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1472information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1473By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1474backtraces.
1475
1476The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1477have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1478DWARF 2 CFI support.
1479
1480* Hosted file I/O.
1481
1482GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1483file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1484remote protocol documentation for details.
1485
1486* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1487
1488All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1489architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1490to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1491ppc32 on ppc64).
1492
1493* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1494
1495GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1496per-thread variables.
1497
1498* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1499
1500GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1501GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1502
1503* Separate debug info.
1504
1505GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1506automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1507of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1508system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1509and optional debug files.
1510
1511* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1512
1513DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1514describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1515debugger.
1516
1517GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1518for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1519
1520* Java
1521
1522A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1523Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1524considered "useable".
1525
85f8f974
DJ
1526* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1527
1528The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1529commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1530kernel.
1531
0fac0b41
DJ
1532* GDB supports logging output to a file
1533
1534There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1535used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1536
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1537* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1538
1539The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1540disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1541command.
1542
e286caf2 1543* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1544
1545The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1546registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1547
d28f9cdf
DJ
1548* Profiling support
1549
1550A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1551be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1552session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1553"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1554data, for more informative profiling results.
1555
da0f9dcd
AC
1556* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1557
1558The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1559option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1560"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1561
1562Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1563removed.
1564
fb9b6b35
JJ
1565Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1566Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1567Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1568 in a subsequent -var-update.
1569
954a4db8
MK
1570* New native configurations.
1571
1572FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1573
6760f9e6
JB
1574* Multi-arched targets.
1575
b4263afa 1576HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1577Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1578
1b831c93
AC
1579* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1580
1581Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1582been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1583configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1584permanently REMOVED.
1585
8b0e5691 1586Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1587Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1588H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1589HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1590HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1591HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1592PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1593Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1594 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1595 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1596Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1597Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1598
5835abe7
NC
1599* REMOVED configurations and files
1600
1601V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1602Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1603IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1604i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1605i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1606i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1607HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1608 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1609 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1610Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1611Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1612Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1613OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1614I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1615
a094c6fb
AC
1616* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1617
1618The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1619the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1620context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1621address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1622The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1623
299ffc64 1624*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1625
46248966
AC
1626* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1627
1628When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1629`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1630in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1631library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1632shared libs like mad''.
1633
b9d14705 1634* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1635
b9d14705
DJ
1636Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1637the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1638arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1639powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1640
e0e9281e
JB
1641* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1642
1643GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1644and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1645they expand.
1646
dd73b9bb
AC
1647The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1648invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1649
1650The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1651macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1652
e0e9281e
JB
1653Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1654information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1655your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1656information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1657
2250ee0c
CV
1658* Multi-arched targets.
1659
6e3ba3b8
JT
1660DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1661DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1662NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1663National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1664Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1665Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1666
cd9bfe15 1667* New targets.
e33ce519 1668
456f8b9d
DB
1669Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1670
e33ce519 1671
da8ca43d
JT
1672* New native configurations
1673
1674Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1675SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1676MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1677UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1678
cd9bfe15
AC
1679* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1680
1681Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1682been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1683configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1684permanently REMOVED.
1685
92eb23c5 1686Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1687OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1688IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1689Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1690Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1691Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1692i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1693i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1694i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1695HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1696 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1697 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1698I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1699
db034ac5
AC
1700* OBSOLETE languages
1701
1702CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1703
cd9bfe15
AC
1704* REMOVED configurations and files
1705
1706AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1707A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1708AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1709AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1710AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1711
1712testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1713
20f01a46
DH
1714* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1715
1716This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1717commands. The default is 1024.
1718
a5941fbf
MK
1719* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1720
1721Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1722
89743e04
MS
1723* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1724
1725These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1726to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1727from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1728
9fb14e79
JB
1729* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1730
1731The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1732including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1733of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1734
2037aebb
AC
1735*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1736
1737* New targets.
1738
1739Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1740
1741* Bug fixes
1742
1743gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1744mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1745Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1746
1747gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1748dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1749Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1750
1751Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1752Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1753By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1754
1755i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1756avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1757By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1758
37057839 1759*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1760
1a703748
MS
1761* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1762
1763This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1764really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1765In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1766target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1767This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1768(notably embedded) targets.
1769
cefd4ef5
MS
1770* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1771
55241689
AC
1772This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1773process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1774GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1775hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1776
352ed7b4
MS
1777* New command line option
1778
1779GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1780
1781* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1782
1783There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1784command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1785a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1786be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1787open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1788issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1789a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1790it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1791GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1792is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1793
fe419ffc
RE
1794* Changes in ARM configurations.
1795
1796Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1797configuration is fully multi-arch.
1798
eb7cedd9
MK
1799* New native configurations
1800
fe419ffc 1801ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1802x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1803AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1804Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1805
c9f63e6b
CV
1806* New targets
1807
1808Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1809
9b4ff276
AC
1810* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1811
1812Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1813been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1814configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1815permanently REMOVED.
1816
1817AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1818A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1819AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1820AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1821AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1822
b4ceaee6 1823testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1824
e2caac18
AC
1825* REMOVED configurations and files
1826
1827TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1828WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1829PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1830PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1831PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1832Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1833Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1834 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1835SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1836Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1837Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1838ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1839Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1840
c2a727fa
TT
1841* Changes to command line processing
1842
1843The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1844for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1845
467d8519
TT
1846* Changes to key bindings
1847
1848There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1849
7072a954
AC
1850*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1851
1852Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1853
1854Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1855corrupted.
1856
1857Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1858
1859Numerous documentation fixes.
1860
1861Numerous testsuite fixes.
1862
34f47bc4 1863*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1864
1865* New native configurations
1866
1867Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1868x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1869MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1870MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1871ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1872s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1873
bf64bfd6
AC
1874* New targets
1875
def90278 1876Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1877CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1878UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1879
17e78a56 1880* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1881
1882x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1883Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1884Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1885 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1886TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1887WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1888Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1889PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1890PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1891PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1892SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1893Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1894ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1895Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1896
17e78a56
AC
1897stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1898kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1899
7fcca85b
AC
1900Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1901been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1902configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1903permanently REMOVED.
1904
a196c81c 1905* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1906
1907Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1908Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1909Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1910ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1911Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1912ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1913
6d6b80e5 1914* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1915
6d6b80e5 1916GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1917sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1918present.
1919
bf64bfd6
AC
1920* Other news:
1921
e23194cb
EZ
1922* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1923
1924* The MI enabled by default.
1925
1926The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1927revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1928engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1929using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1930which is now deprecated.
1931
1932* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1933
1934GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1935main features are supported:
1936
1937 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1938
1939 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1940 extension;
1941
1942 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1943
1944 - a Pascal expression parser.
1945
1946However, some important features are not yet supported.
1947
1948 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1949
1950 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1951
1952 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1953 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1954
1955 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1956
1957 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1958
1959* Changes in completion.
1960
1961Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1962to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1963users expect at the shell prompt.
1964
1965Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1966`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1967program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1968files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1969be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1970considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1971name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1972
1973`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1974
1975* New platform-independent commands:
1976
1977It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1978hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1979documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1980
1981* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1982
d7275149
MK
1983Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1984revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1985many threads as your system allows you to have.
1986
e23194cb
EZ
1987Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1988
d7275149
MK
1989Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1990multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1991
1992* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1993
1994Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1995
e23194cb
EZ
1996GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1997debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1998supported.)
1999
2000* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2001
2002Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2003breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2004implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2005put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2006and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2007registers.
2008
2009The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2010debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2011watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2012
2013* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2014
2015New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2016the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2017
2018New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2019display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2020IDT.
2021
2022New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2023from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2024New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2025a given linear address.
2026
2027GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2028program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2029which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2030
2031DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2032
6c56c069
EZ
2033It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2034
e23194cb
EZ
2035* Changes in documentation.
2036
2037All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2038Documentation License.
2039
2040Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2041manual.
2042
2043TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2044
2045Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2046manual.
2047
2048The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2049documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2050hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2051
5d6640b1
AC
2052* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2053
2054The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2055``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2056contents of this file.
2057
1a1d8446
AC
2058* gdba.el deleted
2059
2060GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2061
9debab2f 2062*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2063
c63ce875
EZ
2064* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2065
2066Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2067programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2068displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2069greater level of detail.
2070
2071* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2072
2073It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2074bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2075on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2076written.
2077
2078* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2079
2080The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2081necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2082machines ``out of the box''.
2083
2084The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2085possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2086signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2087would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2088interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2089
2090It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2091standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2092even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2093and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2094terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2095
2096The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2097enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2098also works.
2099
2100DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2101GDB.
2102
2103It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2104directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2105times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2106breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2107
ed9a39eb
JM
2108* New native configurations
2109
2110ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2111PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2112
7a292a7a
SS
2113* New targets
2114
96baa820 2115Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2116x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2117PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2118TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2119
085dd6e6
JM
2120* OBSOLETE configurations
2121
2122Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2123Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2124Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2125ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2126Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2127
9debab2f
AC
2128Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2129but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2130these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2131be permanently REMOVED.
2132
5330533d
SS
2133* Gould support removed
2134
2135Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2136
bc9e5bbf
AC
2137* New features for SVR4
2138
2139On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2140without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2141load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2142
2143* Many C++ enhancements
2144
2145C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2146in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2147
adf40b2e
JM
2148* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2149
2150A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2151sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2152with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2153``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2154
2155 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2156 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2157
43e526b9
JM
2158* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2159
2160A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2161expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2162instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2163
2164The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2165added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2166
96baa820
JM
2167* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2168
2169The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2170``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2171include ``set remote P-packet''.
2172
11cf8741
JM
2173* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2174
2175The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2176accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2177``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2178
7876dd43
DB
2179* ``apropos'' command added.
2180
2181The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2182documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2183try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2184
bc9e5bbf
AC
2185* New MI interface
2186
2187A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2188interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2189process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2190"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2191enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2192
2193 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2194
c906108c
SS
2195*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2196
2197* New native configurations
2198
2199HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2200HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2201M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2202
2203* New targets
2204
2205Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2206Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2207Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2208
2209* OBSOLETE configurations
2210
2211Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2212
2213Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2214but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2215these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2216be permanently REMOVED.
2217
2218* ANSI/ISO C
2219
2220As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2221buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2222containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2223use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2224available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2225configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2226information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2227already.
2228
2229* Readline 2.2
2230
2231GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2232
2233* set extension-language
2234
2235You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2236languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2237you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2238 set extension-language .c c++
2239The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2240and their associated languages.
2241
2242* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2243
2244When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2245you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2246PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2247
2248 set processor NAME
2249
2250sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2251following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2252
2253 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2254 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2255 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2256 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2257 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2258 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2259 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2260 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2261 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2262 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2263 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2264
2265At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2266special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2267registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2268only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2269
2270* HP-UX support
2271
2272Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2273more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2274library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2275support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2276for xdb and dbx commands.
2277
2278* Catchpoints
2279
2280HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2281generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2282to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2283
2284This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2285argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2286output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2287
2288* Debugging across forks
2289
2290On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2291in the inferior.
2292
2293* TUI
2294
2295HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2296it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2297configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2298
2299* GDB remote protocol additions
2300
2301A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2302Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2303fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2304allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2305
2306For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2307full 64-bit address. The command
2308
2309 set remoteaddresssize 32
2310
2311can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2312the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2313will be discarded.
2314
2315In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2316command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2317
2318 maint packet heythere
2319
2320sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2321disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2322time.
2323
2324The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2325target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2326downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2327
2328* Tracing can collect general expressions
2329
2330You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2331further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2332doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2333
2334* mask-address variable for Mips
2335
2336For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2337a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2338of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2339
2340* Higher serial baud rates
2341
2342GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2343230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2344to achieve all of these rates.)
2345
2346* i960 simulator
2347
2348The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2349builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2350
2351
2352*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2353
2354* New native configurations
2355
2356Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2357Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2358Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2359PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2360PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2361Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2362Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2363
2364* New targets
2365
2366Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2367Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2368Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2369Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2370MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2371MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2372MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2373Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2374Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2375Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2376NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2377
2378* New debugging protocols
2379
2380ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2381M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2382DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2383PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2384PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2385Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2386
2387* DWARF 2
2388
2389All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2390format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2391information.
2392
2393* Java frontend
2394
2395GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2396only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2397
2398* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2399
2400For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2401loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2402locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2403
2404* Live range splitting
2405
2406GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2407range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2408more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2409
2410* Hurd support
2411
2412GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2413updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2414
2415* ARM Thumb support
2416
2417GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2418instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2419instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2420accordingly.
2421
2422* MIPS16 support
2423
2424GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2425instruction set.
2426
2427* Overlay support
2428
2429GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2430linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2431will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2432control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2433additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2434in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2435
2436* info symbol
2437
2438The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2439the symbol at the specified address.
2440
2441* Trace support
2442
2443The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2444asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2445extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2446includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2447file tracepoint.c for more details.
2448
2449* MIPS simulator
2450
2451Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2452by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2453of most MIPS variants.
2454
2455* Sparc simulator
2456
2457Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2458by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2459Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2460
2461* set architecture
2462
2463For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2464basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2465architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2466the possible architectures.
2467
2468*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2469
2470* New native configurations
2471
2472Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2473M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2474PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2475PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2476PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2477RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2478
2479* New targets
2480
2481ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2482I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2483MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2484MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2485PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2486Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2487Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2488
2489* PowerPC simulator
2490
2491The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2492contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2493PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2494basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2495performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2496
2497* Solaris 2.5
2498
2499GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2500
2501* Windows 95/NT native
2502
2503GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2504To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2505which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2506Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2507ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2508
2509* dont-repeat command
2510
2511If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2512command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2513useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2514extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2515
2516* Send break instead of ^C
2517
2518The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2519rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2520GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2521
2522* Remote protocol timeout
2523
2524The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2525that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2526to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2527
2528* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2529
2530By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2531loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2532stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2533when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2534in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2535
2536Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2537/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2538automatically on hpux10.
2539
2540* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2541
2542Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2543
2544* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2545
2546When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2547may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2548the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2549every character. The default value is 1050.
2550
2551* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2552
2553If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2554a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2555replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2556details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2557remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2558to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2559
2560* Speedups for remote debugging
2561
2562GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2563the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2564and more efficient S-record downloading.
2565
2566* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2567
2568GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2569Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2570
2571*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2572
2573* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2574
2575The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2576can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2577
2578* Remote targets use caching
2579
2580Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2581remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2582it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2583debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2584off' turns the the data cache off.
2585
2586* Remote targets may have threads
2587
2588The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2589in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2590gdb/remote.c for details.
2591
2592* NetROM support
2593
2594If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2595support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2596acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2597write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2598support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2599another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2600sequence is something like
2601
2602 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2603 load <prog>
2604 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2605
2606* Macintosh host
2607
2608GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2609may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2610it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2611available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2612device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2613directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2614scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2615mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2616
2617* Autoconf
2618
2619GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2620but does simplify configuration and building.
2621
2622* hpux10
2623
2624GDB now supports hpux10.
2625
2626*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2627
2628* New native configurations
2629
2630x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2631x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2632NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2633Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2634
2635* New targets
2636
2637A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2638HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2639CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2640PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2641WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2642
2643* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2644
2645GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2646possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2647filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2648the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2649if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2650
2651* Arguments to user-defined commands
2652
2653User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2654Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2655trivial example:
2656define adder
2657 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2658
2659To execute the command use:
2660adder 1 2 3
2661
2662Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2663Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2664use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2665
2666* New `if' and `while' commands
2667
2668This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2669commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2670expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2671execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2672terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2673`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2674if the expression is zero.
2675
2676* Fortran source language mode
2677
2678GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2679Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2680variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2681with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2682Fortran compilers.
2683
2684* Better HPUX support
2685
2686Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2687running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2688processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2689for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2690that behavior do the following before running the program:
2691
2692 adb -w a.out
2693 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2694 control-d
2695
2696This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2697To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2698
2699 adb -w a.out
2700 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2701 control-d
2702
2703You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2704the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2705external linkage.
2706
2707GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2708HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2709
2710* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2711
2712You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2713commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2714current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2715"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2716associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2717configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2718
2719* New DOS host serial code
2720
2721This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2722no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2723a PC's serial port.
2724
2725*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2726
2727* New "complete" command
2728
2729This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2730were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2731
2732* Trailing space optional in prompt
2733
2734"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2735allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2736
2737* Breakpoint hit counts
2738
2739"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2740has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2741can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2742to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2743less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2744that breakpoint.
2745
2746* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2747
2748"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2749an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2750arrays actually contain only short strings.
2751
2752* Shared library breakpoints
2753
2754In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2755breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2756
2757* Hardware watchpoints
2758
2759There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2760targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2761
55241689 2762Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2763
2764* Annotations
2765
2766Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2767and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2768
2769* Improved Irix 5 support
2770
2771GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2772
2773* Improved HPPA support
2774
2775GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2776
2777* New native configurations
2778
2779Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2780HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2781Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2782RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2783
2784* New targets
2785
2786OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2787MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2788Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2789
2790* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2791
2792There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2793This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2794
2795* Fixes
2796
2797As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2798and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2799
2800*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2801
2802* Irix 5 is now supported
2803
2804* HPPA support
2805
2806GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2807to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2808GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2809of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2810can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2811
2812
2813*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2814
2815* User visible changes:
2816
2817* Remote Debugging
2818
2819The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2820target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2821debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2822integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2823debugging info for the mips target).
2824
2825* DEC Alpha native support
2826
2827GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2828debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2829work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2830Alpha-specific notes.
2831
2832* Preliminary thread implementation
2833
2834GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2835
2836* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2837
2838This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2839to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2840for details).
2841
2842* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2843
2844This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2845mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2846call methods, ...etc.
2847
2848*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2849
2850 * User visible changes:
2851
2852Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2853supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2854other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2855somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2856
2857Filename completion now works.
2858
2859When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2860arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2861addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2862
2863All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2864vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2865should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2866your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2867to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2868
2869 * DEC alpha support
2870
2871This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2872cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2873
2874
2875*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2876
2877 * Testsuite
2878
2879This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2880The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2881via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2882
2883 * C++ demangling
2884
2885'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2886emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2887Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2888disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2889use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2890
2891 * Simulators
2892
2893GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2894So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2895Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2896
2897 * New targets supported
2898
2899H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2900H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2901SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2902Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2903IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2904
2905Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2906version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2907GO32 memory extender.
2908
2909 * New remote protocols
2910
2911MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2912
2913 * New source languages supported
2914
2915This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2916used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2917into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2918
2919
2920*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2921
2922 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2923
2924GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2925version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2926University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2927compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2928format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2929(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2930
2931Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2932
2933 * Faster and better demangling
2934
2935We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2936demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2937character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2938only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2939This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2940increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2941symbol lookups.
2942
2943`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2944from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2945compiler does not actually implement.
2946
2947 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2948
2949In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2950inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2951recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2952very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2953The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2954circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2955fix.
2956
2957The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2958release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2959
2960 * Improved configure script
2961
2962The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2963you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2964host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2965done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2966
2967We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2968version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2969`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2970The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2971only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2972We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2973
2974 * Documentation improvements
2975
2976There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2977produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2978before submitting changes.
2979
2980The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2981M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2982`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2983you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2984a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2985
2986*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2987We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2988been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2989or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2990`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2991around this problem.
2992
2993 * New features
2994
2995GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2996the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2997`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2998the target program.
2999
3000The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3001how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3002
3003 * New native hosts supported
3004
3005HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3006386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3007
3008 * New targets supported
3009
3010AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3011
3012 * New file formats supported
3013
3014BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3015HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3016
3017 * Major bug fixes
3018
3019Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3020
3021We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3022printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3023
3024We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3025for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3026release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3027
3028You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3029will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3030
3031We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3032for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3033especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3034libraries.
3035
3036The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3037information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3038command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3039any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3040when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3041
3042 * Internal improvements
3043
3044GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3045debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3046
3047GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3048Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3049symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3050contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3051shared code that handles any of them.
3052
3053 * New command line options
3054
3055We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3056
3057 * Mmalloc licensing
3058
3059The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3060General Public License.
3061
3062*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3063
3064 * Host/native/target split
3065
3066GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3067hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3068target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3069local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3070ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3071
3072The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3073GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3074is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3075code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3076any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3077built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3078handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3079
3080GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3081It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3082plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3083
3084 * New hosts supported
3085
3086HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3087386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3088386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3089
3090 * New targets supported
3091
3092Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
309368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3094
3095 * New native hosts supported
3096
3097386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3098 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3099386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3100
3101 * New file formats supported
3102
3103BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3104supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3105format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3106
3107 * New commands
3108
3109`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3110`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3111These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3112
3113`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3114
3115You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3116scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3117prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3118executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3119
3120 * C++ improvements
3121
3122We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3123info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3124symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3125
3126Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3127
3128 * Major bug fixes
3129
3130The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3131fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3132by the compiler.
3133
3134We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3135support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3136
3137John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3138slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3139that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3140purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3141the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3142mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3143
3144Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3145about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3146completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3147we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3148
3149 * AMD 29k support
3150
3151A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3152specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3153calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3154usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3155in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3156
3157We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3158Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3159of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3160resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3161
3162 * Remote interfaces
3163
3164We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3165with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3166message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3167This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3168needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3169breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3170each instruction being stepped through.
3171
3172The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3173registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3174
3175There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3176find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3177Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3178processor with a serial port.
3179
3180 * Configuration
3181
3182Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3183`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3184supported, and what files each one uses.
3185
3186 * Library changes
3187
3188There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3189disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3190Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3191disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3192
3193The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3194Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3195can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3196grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3197
3198 * Documentation
3199
3200The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3201reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3202as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3203encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3204system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3205bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3206
3207And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3208
3209
3210*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3211
3212 * Better support for C++ function names
3213
3214GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3215names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3216(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3217single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3218Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3219
3220GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3221the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3222You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3223lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3224for the list of formats.
3225
3226 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3227
3228Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3229C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3230directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3231can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3232usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3233about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3234this problem.)
3235
3236 * New 'maintenance' command
3237
3238All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3239the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3240can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3241
3242 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3243 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3244 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3245 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3246 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3247 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3248
3249The following commands are new:
3250
3251 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3252 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3253 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3254
3255 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3256
3257We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3258(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3259be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3260read after argv processing.
3261
3262 * New hosts supported
3263
3264Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3265
55241689 3266GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3267
3268We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3269is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3270for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3271masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3272fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3273It costs extra.
3274
3275 * New targets supported
3276
3277Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3278
3279 * More smarts about finding #include files
3280
3281GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3282all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3283greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3284especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3285the one that contains your sources.
3286
3287We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3288breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3289try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3290
3291 * Interesting infernals change
3292
3293GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3294section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3295target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3296stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3297
3298 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3299
3300There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3301 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3302 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3303
3304See the ChangeLog for details.
3305
3306*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3307
3308 * New machines supported (host and target)
3309
3310IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3311
3312SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3313
3314 * New malloc package
3315
3316GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3317Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3318capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3319This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3320pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3321more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3322
3323 * info proc
3324
3325The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3326'help info proc' for details.
3327
3328 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3329
3330The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3331Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3332possible.
3333
3334 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3335
3336Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3337support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3338conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3339environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3340that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3341in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3342
3343 * Cross byte order fixes
3344
3345Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3346targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3347
3348 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3349
3350If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3351system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3352`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3353program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3354called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3355Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3356and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3357the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3358option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3359starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3360
3361You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3362the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3363information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3364slower, but makes future operations faster.
3365
3366The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3367build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3368A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3369use is:
3370
3371 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3372
3373The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3374It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3375shared across multiple host platforms.
3376
3377 * longjmp() handling
3378
3379GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3380siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3381all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3382platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3383
3384 * Solaris 2.0
3385
3386Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3387this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3388reading symbols.
3389
3390 * Bug fixes
3391
3392As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3393People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3394crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3395
3396*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3397
3398 * New machines supported (host and target)
3399
3400SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3401 (except core files)
3402BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3403Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3404
3405 * New machines supported (target)
3406
3407AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3408
3409 * C++ support
3410
3411GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3412The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3413per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3414
3415GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3416`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3417extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3418good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3419will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3420released.
3421
3422 * New features for SVR4
3423
3424GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3425shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3426only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3427
3428The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3429on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3430it prints the address mappings of the process.
3431
3432If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3433bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3434
3435 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3436
3437Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3438now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3439skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3440make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3441same code linked statically.
3442
3443 * New Getopt
3444
3445GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3446version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3447continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3448Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3449added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3450future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3451
3452 * Bugs fixed
3453
3454The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3455Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3456See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3457
3458
3459*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3460
3461 * New machines supported (host and target)
3462
3463Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3464NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3465Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3466
3467 * Almost SCO Unix support
3468
3469We had hoped to support:
3470SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3471(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3472that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3473about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3474
3475 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3476
3477GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3478debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3479is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3480send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3481reqired (if any).
3482
3483 * New Readline
3484
3485GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3486is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3487required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3488
3489 * Bugs fixed
3490
3491The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3492Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3493See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3494
3495 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3496
3497GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3498supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3499symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3500
3501Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3502mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3503debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3504mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3505version 2.
3506
3507Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3508really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3509line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3510variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3511situation somewhat.
3512
3513When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3514However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3515methods.
3516
3517We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3518DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3519encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3520
3521
3522*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3523
3524 * Improved configuration
3525
3526Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3527Porting BFD is simpler.
3528
3529 * Stepping improved
3530
3531The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3532of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3533in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3534function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3535
3536 * Bug fixing
3537
3538Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3539
3540 * New host supported (not target)
3541
3542Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3543
3544
3545*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3546
3547 * Multiple source language support
3548
3549GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3550It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3551and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3552language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3553You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3554`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3555
3556 * GDB and Modula-2
3557
3558GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3559currently under development at the State University of New York at
3560Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3561continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3562
3563Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3564debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3565symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3566
3567There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3568in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3569
3570 * set write on/off
3571
3572GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3573a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3574the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3575by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3576effect immediately.
3577
3578 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3579
3580When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3581shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3582The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3583examining core files.
3584
3585 * set listsize
3586
3587You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3588The default is 10.
3589
3590 * New machines supported (host and target)
3591
3592SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3593Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3594Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3595
3596 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3597
3598IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3599
3600 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3601
3602AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3603AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3604Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3605
3606 * New remote interfaces
3607
3608AMD 29000 Adapt
3609AMD 29000 Minimon
3610
3611
3612*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3613
3614 * New Facilities
3615
3616Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3617
3618Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3619target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3620is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3621remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3622remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3623also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3624using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3625stub on the target system.
3626
3627New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3628
3629GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3630library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3631object file types such as a.out and coff.
3632
3633There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3634refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3635
3636
3637 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3638
3639All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3640by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3641
3642For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3643``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3644Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3645
3646What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3647print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3648will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3649all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3650
3651confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3652 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3653 it is already running. Default is ON.
3654
3655editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3656 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3657 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3658 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3659 Default is ON.
3660
3661history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3662 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3663 or the value of the environment variable
3664 GDBHISTFILE.
3665
3666history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3667 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3668 HISTSIZE.
3669
3670history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3671 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3672 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3673
3674history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3675 history expansion will be performed on
3676 command line input. The default is OFF.
3677
3678radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3679 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3680 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3681
3682height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3683 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3684 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3685 variable TERM.
3686
3687width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3688 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3689 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3690 variable TERM.
3691
3692Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3693``set width'' instead.
3694
3695print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3696 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3697 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3698 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3699
3700print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3701 is OFF.
3702
3703print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3704 "raw" form if off.
3705
3706print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3707 like instructions.
3708
3709print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3710
3711
3712 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3713
3714The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3715new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3716are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3717window.
3718
3719
3720 * Support for Shared Libraries
3721
3722GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3723Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3724before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3725happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3726At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3727from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3728shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3729It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3730
3731sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3732 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3733 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3734
3735info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3736
3737
3738 * Watchpoints
3739
3740A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3741expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3742tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3743quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3744problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3745more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3746
3747watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3748
3749info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3750
3751delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3752disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3753enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3754
3755
3756 * C++ multiple inheritance
3757
3758When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3759for C++ programs.
3760
3761 * C++ exception handling
3762
3763Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3764ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3765the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3766handler's context).
3767
3768catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3769 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3770 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3771
3772info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3773 current stack frame.
3774
3775
3776 * Minor command changes
3777
3778The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3779command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3780is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3781
3782The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3783at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3784frames without printing.
3785
3786 * New directory command
3787
3788'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3789The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3790about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3791with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3792find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3793
3794 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3795
3796For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3797for more details.
3798
3799GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3800two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3801Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3802where the program that you are debugging will run.