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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.3
5
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6* REMOVED configurations and files
7
8VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
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9Renesas H8/300S h8300*-*-*
10Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
11Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
12National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
13NEC V850 v850-*-*
156a53ca 14
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15*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
16
17* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
18
19GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
20information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
21by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
22proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
23to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 24
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25* Internationalization
26
27When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
28internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
29continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
30
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31* Ada
32
33Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
34implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
35into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
36
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37* New native configurations
38
39GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
40
41* Remote 'p' packet
42
43GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
44packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
45
46* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
47
48GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
49The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
50features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
51i386 application).
52
53GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
54compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
55continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
56configurations:
57
58hppa-*-hpux
59ia64-*-aix
60mips-*-irix*
61*-*-lynx
62mips-*-linux-gnu
63sds protocol
64xdr protocol
65powerpc bdm protocol
66
67Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
68made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
69
70* OBSOLETE configurations and files
71
72Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
73been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
74configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
75permanently REMOVED.
76
77h8300-*-*
78mcore-*-*
79mn10300-*-*
80ns32k-*-*
81sh64-*-*
82v850-*-*
83
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84*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
85
86* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
87
88When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
89heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
90been fixed.
91
92* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
93
94When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
95fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
96IRIX long double values).
97
98* VAX and "next"
99
100A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
101command. This problem has been fixed.
102
860660cb 103*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 104
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105* Fix for ``many threads''
106
107On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
108rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
109error message:
110
111 ptrace: No such process.
112 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
113
114This problem has been fixed.
115
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116* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
117
118Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
119GDB to dump core).
120
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121* New ``start'' command.
122
123This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
124
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125* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
126
127Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
128live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
129platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
130
131FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
132FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
133NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
134NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
135NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
136OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
137OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
138OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
139OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
140
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141* Signal trampoline code overhauled
142
143Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
144These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
145of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
146call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
147signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
148
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149Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
150features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
151include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 152
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153* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
154
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155* New native configurations
156
97dc871c 157GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 158OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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159OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
160OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 161OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 162NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 163OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 164
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165* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
166
167GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
168The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
169including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
170migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
171compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
172work, was also included.
173
174GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
175module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
176
177h8300-*-*
178mcore-*-*
179mn10300-*-*
180ns32k-*-*
181sh64-*-*
182v850-*-*
183xstormy16-*-*
184
185Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
186made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
187
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188* REMOVED configurations and files
189
190Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
191Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
192Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
193Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
194Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
195AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
196Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
197decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
198riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
199sonymips mips-sony-*
200sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
201
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202*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
203
204* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
205
206The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
207GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
208command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
209program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
210with GDB".
211
212* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
213
214Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
215libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
216cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
217GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
218shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
219the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
220are created.
221
222Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
223
224* Fixed ISO-C build problems
225
226The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
227non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
228compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
229
230* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
231
232Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
233wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
234
235* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
236
237The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
238permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
239systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
240
241* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
242
243Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
244has been updated to use constant array sizes.
245
246* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
247
248GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
249its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
250panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
251
252* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
253
254When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
255by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
256not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
257
faae5abe 258*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 259
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260* Removed --with-mmalloc
261
262Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
263conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
264
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265* Changes in AMD64 configurations
266
267The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
268the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
269and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
270you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
271
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272* Revised SPARC target
273
274The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
275FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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276support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
277from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
278(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 279
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280* New C++ demangler
281
282GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
283names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
284with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
285programs.
286
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287* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
288
289GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
290arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
291encountered these.
292
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293* C++ nested types and namespaces
294
295GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
296improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
297is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
298Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
299namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
300"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
301frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
302if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
303GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
304
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305* New native configurations
306
307NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 308OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 309OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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310OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
311OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 312
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313* New debugging protocols
314
315M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
316
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317* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
318
319The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
320and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
321tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
322
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323* OBSOLETE configurations and files
324
325Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
326been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
327configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
328permanently REMOVED.
329
330Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
331Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
332Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
333Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
334Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
335AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
336Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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337decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
338riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
339sonymips mips-sony-*
340sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 341
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342* REMOVED configurations and files
343
344SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
345SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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346Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
347Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
348H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
349HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
350HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
351HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
352PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 353386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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354Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
355 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
356 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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357SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
358SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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359Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
360Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 361
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362*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
363
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364* Objective-C
365
366Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
367integrated into GDB.
368
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369* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
370
371DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
372information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
373By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
374backtraces.
375
376The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
377have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
378DWARF 2 CFI support.
379
380* Hosted file I/O.
381
382GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
383file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
384remote protocol documentation for details.
385
386* All targets using the new architecture framework.
387
388All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
389architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
390to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
391ppc32 on ppc64).
392
393* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
394
395GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
396per-thread variables.
397
398* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
399
400GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
401GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
402
403* Separate debug info.
404
405GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
406automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
407of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
408system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
409and optional debug files.
410
411* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
412
413DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
414describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
415debugger.
416
417GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
418for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
419
420* Java
421
422A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
423Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
424considered "useable".
425
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426* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
427
428The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
429commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
430kernel.
431
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432* GDB supports logging output to a file
433
434There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
435used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 436
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437* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
438
439The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
440disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
441command.
442
e286caf2 443* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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444
445The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
446registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
447
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448* Profiling support
449
450A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
451be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
452session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
453"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
454data, for more informative profiling results.
455
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456* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
457
458The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
459option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 460"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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461
462Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
463removed.
464
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465Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
466Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
467Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
468 in a subsequent -var-update.
469
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470* New native configurations.
471
472FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
473
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474* Multi-arched targets.
475
b4263afa 476HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 477Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 478
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479* OBSOLETE configurations and files
480
481Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
482been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
483configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
484permanently REMOVED.
485
8b0e5691 486Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 487Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 488H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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489HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
490HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
491HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 492PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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493Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
494 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
495 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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496Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
497Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 498
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499* REMOVED configurations and files
500
501V850EA ISA
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502Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
503IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
504i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
505i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
506i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
507HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
508 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
509 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
510Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
511Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
512Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
513OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
514I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 515
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516* MIPS $fp behavior changed
517
518The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
519the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
520context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
521address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
522The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
523
299ffc64 524*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 525
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526* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
527
528When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
529`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
530in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
531library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
532shared libs like mad''.
533
b9d14705 534* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 535
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536Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
537the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
538arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
539powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 540
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541* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
542
543GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
544and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
545they expand.
546
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547The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
548invocations in expression, and shows the result.
549
550The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
551macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
552
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553Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
554information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
555your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
556information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
557
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558* Multi-arched targets.
559
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560DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
561DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 562NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 563National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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564Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
565Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 566
cd9bfe15 567* New targets.
e33ce519 568
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569Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
570
e33ce519 571
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572* New native configurations
573
574Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 575SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 576MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 577UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 578
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579* OBSOLETE configurations and files
580
581Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
582been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
583configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
584permanently REMOVED.
585
92eb23c5 586Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 587OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 588IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 589Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 590Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 591Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
592i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
593i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
594i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
595HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
596 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
597 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 598I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 599
db034ac5
AC
600* OBSOLETE languages
601
602CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
603
cd9bfe15
AC
604* REMOVED configurations and files
605
606AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
607A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
608AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
609AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
610AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
611
612testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
613
20f01a46
DH
614* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
615
616This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
617commands. The default is 1024.
618
a5941fbf
MK
619* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
620
621Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
622
89743e04
MS
623* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
624
625These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
626to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
627from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 628
9fb14e79
JB
629* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
630
631The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
632including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
633of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
634
2037aebb
AC
635*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
636
637* New targets.
638
639Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
640
641* Bug fixes
642
643gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
644mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
645Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
646
647gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
648dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
649Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
650
651Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
652Surprisingly enough, it works now.
653By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
654
655i386 hardware watchpoint support:
656avoid misses on second run for some targets.
657By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
658
37057839 659*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 660
1a703748
MS
661* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
662
663This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
664really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
665In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
666target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
667This can be a significant performance improvement on some
668(notably embedded) targets.
669
cefd4ef5
MS
670* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
671
55241689
AC
672This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
673process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
674GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
675hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 676
352ed7b4
MS
677* New command line option
678
679GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
680
681* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
682
683There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
684command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
685a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
686be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
687open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
688issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
689a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
690it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
691GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
692is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
693
fe419ffc
RE
694* Changes in ARM configurations.
695
696Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
697configuration is fully multi-arch.
698
eb7cedd9
MK
699* New native configurations
700
fe419ffc 701ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 702x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 703AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 704Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 705
c9f63e6b
CV
706* New targets
707
708Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
709
9b4ff276
AC
710* OBSOLETE configurations and files
711
712Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
713been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
714configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
715permanently REMOVED.
716
717AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
718A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
719AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
720AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
721AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
722
b4ceaee6 723testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 724
e2caac18
AC
725* REMOVED configurations and files
726
727TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 728WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
729PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
730PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
731PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 732Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
733Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
734 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 735SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 736Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
737Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
738ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 739Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 740
c2a727fa
TT
741* Changes to command line processing
742
743The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
744for the inferior from gdb's command line.
745
467d8519
TT
746* Changes to key bindings
747
748There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
749
7072a954
AC
750*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
751
752Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
753
754Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
755corrupted.
756
757Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
758
759Numerous documentation fixes.
760
761Numerous testsuite fixes.
762
34f47bc4 763*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
764
765* New native configurations
766
767Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
768x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 769MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
770MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
771ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 772s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 773
bf64bfd6
AC
774* New targets
775
def90278 776Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 777CRIS cris-axis
55241689 778UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 779
17e78a56 780* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
781
782x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 783Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
784Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
785 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
786TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
787WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 788Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
789PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
790PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
791PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 792SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
793Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
794ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 795Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 796
17e78a56
AC
797stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
798kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
799
7fcca85b
AC
800Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
801been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
802configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
803permanently REMOVED.
804
a196c81c 805* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
806
807Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
808Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
809Pyramid pyramid-*-*
810ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
811Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 812ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 813
6d6b80e5 814* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 815
6d6b80e5 816GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
817sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
818present.
819
bf64bfd6
AC
820* Other news:
821
e23194cb
EZ
822* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
823
824* The MI enabled by default.
825
826The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
827revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
828engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
829using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
830which is now deprecated.
831
832* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
833
834GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
835main features are supported:
836
837 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
838
839 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
840 extension;
841
842 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
843
844 - a Pascal expression parser.
845
846However, some important features are not yet supported.
847
848 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
849
850 - there are some problems with boolean types;
851
852 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
853 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
854
855 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
856
857 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
858
859* Changes in completion.
860
861Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
862to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
863users expect at the shell prompt.
864
865Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
866`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
867program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
868files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
869be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
870considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
871name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
872
873`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
874
875* New platform-independent commands:
876
877It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
878hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
879documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
880
881* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
882
d7275149
MK
883Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
884revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
885many threads as your system allows you to have.
886
e23194cb
EZ
887Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
888
d7275149
MK
889Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
890multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
891
892* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
893
894Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
895
e23194cb
EZ
896GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
897debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
898supported.)
899
900* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
901
902Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
903breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
904implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
905put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
906and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
907registers.
908
909The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
910debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
911watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
912
913* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
914
915New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
916the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
917
918New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
919display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
920IDT.
921
922New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
923from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
924New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
925a given linear address.
926
927GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
928program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
929which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
930
931DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
932
6c56c069
EZ
933It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
934
e23194cb
EZ
935* Changes in documentation.
936
937All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
938Documentation License.
939
940Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
941manual.
942
943TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
944
945Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
946manual.
947
948The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
949documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
950hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
951
5d6640b1
AC
952* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
953
954The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
955``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
956contents of this file.
957
1a1d8446
AC
958* gdba.el deleted
959
960GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 961
9debab2f 962*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 963
c63ce875
EZ
964* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
965
966Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
967programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
968displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
969greater level of detail.
970
971* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
972
973It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
974bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
975on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
976written.
977
978* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
979
980The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
981necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
982machines ``out of the box''.
983
984The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
985possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
986signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
987would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
988interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
989
990It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
991standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
992even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
993and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
994terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
995
996The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
997enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
998also works.
999
1000DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1001GDB.
1002
1003It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1004directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1005times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1006breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1007
ed9a39eb
JM
1008* New native configurations
1009
1010ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1011PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1012
7a292a7a
SS
1013* New targets
1014
96baa820 1015Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1016x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1017PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1018TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1019
085dd6e6
JM
1020* OBSOLETE configurations
1021
1022Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1023Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1024Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1025ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1026Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1027
9debab2f
AC
1028Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1029but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1030these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1031be permanently REMOVED.
1032
5330533d
SS
1033* Gould support removed
1034
1035Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1036
bc9e5bbf
AC
1037* New features for SVR4
1038
1039On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1040without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1041load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1042
1043* Many C++ enhancements
1044
1045C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1046in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1047
adf40b2e
JM
1048* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1049
1050A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1051sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1052with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1053``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1054
1055 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1056 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1057
43e526b9
JM
1058* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1059
1060A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1061expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1062instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1063
1064The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1065added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1066
96baa820
JM
1067* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1068
1069The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1070``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1071include ``set remote P-packet''.
1072
11cf8741
JM
1073* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1074
1075The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1076accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1077``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1078
7876dd43
DB
1079* ``apropos'' command added.
1080
1081The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1082documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1083try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1084
bc9e5bbf
AC
1085* New MI interface
1086
1087A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1088interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1089process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1090"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1091enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1092
1093 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1094
c906108c
SS
1095*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1096
1097* New native configurations
1098
1099HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1100HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1101M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1102
1103* New targets
1104
1105Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1106Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1107Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1108
1109* OBSOLETE configurations
1110
1111Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1112
1113Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1114but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1115these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1116be permanently REMOVED.
1117
1118* ANSI/ISO C
1119
1120As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1121buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1122containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1123use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1124available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1125configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1126information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1127already.
1128
1129* Readline 2.2
1130
1131GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1132
1133* set extension-language
1134
1135You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1136languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1137you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1138 set extension-language .c c++
1139The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1140and their associated languages.
1141
1142* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1143
1144When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1145you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1146PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1147
1148 set processor NAME
1149
1150sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1151following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1152
1153 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1154 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1155 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1156 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1157 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1158 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1159 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1160 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1161 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1162 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1163 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1164
1165At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1166special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1167registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1168only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1169
1170* HP-UX support
1171
1172Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1173more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1174library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1175support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1176for xdb and dbx commands.
1177
1178* Catchpoints
1179
1180HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1181generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1182to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1183
1184This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1185argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1186output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1187
1188* Debugging across forks
1189
1190On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1191in the inferior.
1192
1193* TUI
1194
1195HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1196it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1197configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1198
1199* GDB remote protocol additions
1200
1201A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1202Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1203fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1204allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1205
1206For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1207full 64-bit address. The command
1208
1209 set remoteaddresssize 32
1210
1211can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1212the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1213will be discarded.
1214
1215In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1216command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1217
1218 maint packet heythere
1219
1220sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1221disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1222time.
1223
1224The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1225target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1226downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1227
1228* Tracing can collect general expressions
1229
1230You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1231further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1232doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1233
1234* mask-address variable for Mips
1235
1236For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1237a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1238of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1239
1240* Higher serial baud rates
1241
1242GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1243230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1244to achieve all of these rates.)
1245
1246* i960 simulator
1247
1248The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1249builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1250
1251
1252*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1253
1254* New native configurations
1255
1256Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1257Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1258Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1259PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1260PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1261Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1262Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1263
1264* New targets
1265
1266Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1267Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1268Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1269Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1270MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1271MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1272MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1273Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1274Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1275Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1276NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1277
1278* New debugging protocols
1279
1280ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1281M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1282DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1283PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1284PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1285Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1286
1287* DWARF 2
1288
1289All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1290format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1291information.
1292
1293* Java frontend
1294
1295GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1296only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1297
1298* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1299
1300For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1301loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1302locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1303
1304* Live range splitting
1305
1306GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1307range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1308more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1309
1310* Hurd support
1311
1312GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1313updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1314
1315* ARM Thumb support
1316
1317GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1318instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1319instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1320accordingly.
1321
1322* MIPS16 support
1323
1324GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1325instruction set.
1326
1327* Overlay support
1328
1329GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1330linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1331will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1332control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1333additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1334in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1335
1336* info symbol
1337
1338The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1339the symbol at the specified address.
1340
1341* Trace support
1342
1343The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1344asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1345extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1346includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1347file tracepoint.c for more details.
1348
1349* MIPS simulator
1350
1351Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1352by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1353of most MIPS variants.
1354
1355* Sparc simulator
1356
1357Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1358by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1359Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1360
1361* set architecture
1362
1363For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1364basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1365architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1366the possible architectures.
1367
1368*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1369
1370* New native configurations
1371
1372Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1373M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1374PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1375PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1376PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1377RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1378
1379* New targets
1380
1381ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1382I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1383MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1384MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1385PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1386Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1387Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1388
1389* PowerPC simulator
1390
1391The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1392contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1393PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1394basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1395performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1396
1397* Solaris 2.5
1398
1399GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1400
1401* Windows 95/NT native
1402
1403GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1404To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1405which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1406Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1407ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1408
1409* dont-repeat command
1410
1411If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1412command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1413useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1414extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1415
1416* Send break instead of ^C
1417
1418The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1419rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1420GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1421
1422* Remote protocol timeout
1423
1424The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1425that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1426to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1427
1428* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1429
1430By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1431loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1432stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1433when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1434in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1435
1436Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1437/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1438automatically on hpux10.
1439
1440* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1441
1442Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1443
1444* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1445
1446When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1447may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1448the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1449every character. The default value is 1050.
1450
1451* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1452
1453If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1454a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1455replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1456details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1457remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1458to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1459
1460* Speedups for remote debugging
1461
1462GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1463the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1464and more efficient S-record downloading.
1465
1466* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1467
1468GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1469Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1470
1471*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1472
1473* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1474
1475The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1476can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1477
1478* Remote targets use caching
1479
1480Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1481remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1482it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1483debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1484off' turns the the data cache off.
1485
1486* Remote targets may have threads
1487
1488The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1489in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1490gdb/remote.c for details.
1491
1492* NetROM support
1493
1494If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1495support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1496acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1497write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1498support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1499another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1500sequence is something like
1501
1502 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1503 load <prog>
1504 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1505
1506* Macintosh host
1507
1508GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1509may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1510it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1511available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1512device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1513directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1514scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1515mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1516
1517* Autoconf
1518
1519GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1520but does simplify configuration and building.
1521
1522* hpux10
1523
1524GDB now supports hpux10.
1525
1526*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1527
1528* New native configurations
1529
1530x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1531x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1532NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1533Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1534
1535* New targets
1536
1537A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1538HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1539CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1540PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1541WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1542
1543* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1544
1545GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1546possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1547filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1548the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1549if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1550
1551* Arguments to user-defined commands
1552
1553User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1554Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1555trivial example:
1556define adder
1557 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1558
1559To execute the command use:
1560adder 1 2 3
1561
1562Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1563Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1564use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1565
1566* New `if' and `while' commands
1567
1568This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1569commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1570expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1571execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1572terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1573`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1574if the expression is zero.
1575
1576* Fortran source language mode
1577
1578GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1579Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1580variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1581with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1582Fortran compilers.
1583
1584* Better HPUX support
1585
1586Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1587running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1588processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1589for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1590that behavior do the following before running the program:
1591
1592 adb -w a.out
1593 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1594 control-d
1595
1596This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1597To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1598
1599 adb -w a.out
1600 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1601 control-d
1602
1603You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1604the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1605external linkage.
1606
1607GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1608HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1609
1610* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1611
1612You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1613commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1614current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1615"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1616associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1617configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1618
1619* New DOS host serial code
1620
1621This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1622no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1623a PC's serial port.
1624
1625*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1626
1627* New "complete" command
1628
1629This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1630were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1631
1632* Trailing space optional in prompt
1633
1634"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1635allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1636
1637* Breakpoint hit counts
1638
1639"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1640has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1641can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1642to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1643less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1644that breakpoint.
1645
1646* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1647
1648"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1649an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1650arrays actually contain only short strings.
1651
1652* Shared library breakpoints
1653
1654In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1655breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1656
1657* Hardware watchpoints
1658
1659There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1660targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1661
55241689 1662Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1663
1664* Annotations
1665
1666Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1667and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1668
1669* Improved Irix 5 support
1670
1671GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1672
1673* Improved HPPA support
1674
1675GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1676
1677* New native configurations
1678
1679Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1680HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1681Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1682RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1683
1684* New targets
1685
1686OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1687MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1688Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1689
1690* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1691
1692There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1693This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1694
1695* Fixes
1696
1697As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1698and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1699
1700*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1701
1702* Irix 5 is now supported
1703
1704* HPPA support
1705
1706GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1707to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1708GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1709of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1710can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1711
1712
1713*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1714
1715* User visible changes:
1716
1717* Remote Debugging
1718
1719The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1720target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1721debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1722integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1723debugging info for the mips target).
1724
1725* DEC Alpha native support
1726
1727GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1728debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1729work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1730Alpha-specific notes.
1731
1732* Preliminary thread implementation
1733
1734GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1735
1736* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1737
1738This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1739to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1740for details).
1741
1742* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1743
1744This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1745mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1746call methods, ...etc.
1747
1748*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1749
1750 * User visible changes:
1751
1752Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1753supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1754other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1755somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1756
1757Filename completion now works.
1758
1759When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1760arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1761addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1762
1763All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1764vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1765should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1766your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1767to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1768
1769 * DEC alpha support
1770
1771This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1772cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1773
1774
1775*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1776
1777 * Testsuite
1778
1779This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1780The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1781via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1782
1783 * C++ demangling
1784
1785'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1786emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1787Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1788disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1789use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1790
1791 * Simulators
1792
1793GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1794So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1795Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1796
1797 * New targets supported
1798
1799H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1800H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1801SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1802Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1803IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1804
1805Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1806version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1807GO32 memory extender.
1808
1809 * New remote protocols
1810
1811MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1812
1813 * New source languages supported
1814
1815This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1816used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1817into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1818
1819
1820*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1821
1822 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1823
1824GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1825version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1826University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1827compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1828format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1829(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1830
1831Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1832
1833 * Faster and better demangling
1834
1835We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1836demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1837character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1838only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1839This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1840increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1841symbol lookups.
1842
1843`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1844from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1845compiler does not actually implement.
1846
1847 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1848
1849In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1850inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1851recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1852very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1853The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1854circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1855fix.
1856
1857The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1858release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1859
1860 * Improved configure script
1861
1862The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1863you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1864host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1865done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1866
1867We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1868version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1869`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1870The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1871only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1872We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1873
1874 * Documentation improvements
1875
1876There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1877produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1878before submitting changes.
1879
1880The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1881M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1882`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1883you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1884a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1885
1886*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1887We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1888been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1889or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1890`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1891around this problem.
1892
1893 * New features
1894
1895GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1896the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1897`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1898the target program.
1899
1900The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1901how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1902
1903 * New native hosts supported
1904
1905HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1906386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1907
1908 * New targets supported
1909
1910AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1911
1912 * New file formats supported
1913
1914BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1915HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1916
1917 * Major bug fixes
1918
1919Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1920
1921We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1922printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1923
1924We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1925for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1926release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1927
1928You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1929will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1930
1931We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1932for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1933especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1934libraries.
1935
1936The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1937information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1938command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1939any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1940when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1941
1942 * Internal improvements
1943
1944GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1945debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1946
1947GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1948Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1949symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1950contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1951shared code that handles any of them.
1952
1953 * New command line options
1954
1955We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1956
1957 * Mmalloc licensing
1958
1959The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1960General Public License.
1961
1962*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1963
1964 * Host/native/target split
1965
1966GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1967hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1968target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1969local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1970ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1971
1972The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1973GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1974is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1975code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1976any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1977built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1978handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1979
1980GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1981It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1982plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1983
1984 * New hosts supported
1985
1986HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1987386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1988386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1989
1990 * New targets supported
1991
1992Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
199368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1994
1995 * New native hosts supported
1996
1997386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1998 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1999386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2000
2001 * New file formats supported
2002
2003BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2004supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2005format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2006
2007 * New commands
2008
2009`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2010`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2011These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2012
2013`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2014
2015You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2016scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2017prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2018executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2019
2020 * C++ improvements
2021
2022We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2023info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2024symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2025
2026Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2027
2028 * Major bug fixes
2029
2030The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2031fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2032by the compiler.
2033
2034We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2035support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2036
2037John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2038slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2039that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2040purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2041the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2042mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2043
2044Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2045about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2046completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2047we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2048
2049 * AMD 29k support
2050
2051A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2052specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2053calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2054usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2055in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2056
2057We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2058Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2059of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2060resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2061
2062 * Remote interfaces
2063
2064We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2065with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2066message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2067This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2068needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2069breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2070each instruction being stepped through.
2071
2072The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2073registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2074
2075There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2076find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2077Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2078processor with a serial port.
2079
2080 * Configuration
2081
2082Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2083`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2084supported, and what files each one uses.
2085
2086 * Library changes
2087
2088There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2089disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2090Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2091disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2092
2093The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2094Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2095can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2096grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2097
2098 * Documentation
2099
2100The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2101reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2102as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2103encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2104system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2105bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2106
2107And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2108
2109
2110*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2111
2112 * Better support for C++ function names
2113
2114GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2115names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2116(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2117single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2118Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2119
2120GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2121the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2122You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2123lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2124for the list of formats.
2125
2126 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2127
2128Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2129C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2130directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2131can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2132usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2133about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2134this problem.)
2135
2136 * New 'maintenance' command
2137
2138All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2139the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2140can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2141
2142 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2143 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2144 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2145 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2146 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2147 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2148
2149The following commands are new:
2150
2151 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2152 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2153 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2154
2155 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2156
2157We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2158(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2159be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2160read after argv processing.
2161
2162 * New hosts supported
2163
2164Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2165
55241689 2166GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2167
2168We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2169is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2170for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2171masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2172fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2173It costs extra.
2174
2175 * New targets supported
2176
2177Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2178
2179 * More smarts about finding #include files
2180
2181GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2182all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2183greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2184especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2185the one that contains your sources.
2186
2187We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2188breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2189try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2190
2191 * Interesting infernals change
2192
2193GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2194section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2195target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2196stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2197
2198 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2199
2200There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2201 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2202 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2203
2204See the ChangeLog for details.
2205
2206*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2207
2208 * New machines supported (host and target)
2209
2210IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2211
2212SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2213
2214 * New malloc package
2215
2216GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2217Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2218capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2219This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2220pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2221more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2222
2223 * info proc
2224
2225The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2226'help info proc' for details.
2227
2228 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2229
2230The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2231Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2232possible.
2233
2234 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2235
2236Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2237support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2238conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2239environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2240that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2241in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2242
2243 * Cross byte order fixes
2244
2245Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2246targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2247
2248 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2249
2250If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2251system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2252`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2253program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2254called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2255Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2256and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2257the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2258option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2259starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2260
2261You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2262the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2263information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2264slower, but makes future operations faster.
2265
2266The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2267build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2268A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2269use is:
2270
2271 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2272
2273The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2274It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2275shared across multiple host platforms.
2276
2277 * longjmp() handling
2278
2279GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2280siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2281all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2282platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2283
2284 * Solaris 2.0
2285
2286Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2287this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2288reading symbols.
2289
2290 * Bug fixes
2291
2292As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2293People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2294crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2295
2296*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2297
2298 * New machines supported (host and target)
2299
2300SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2301 (except core files)
2302BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2303Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2304
2305 * New machines supported (target)
2306
2307AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2308
2309 * C++ support
2310
2311GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2312The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2313per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2314
2315GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2316`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2317extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2318good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2319will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2320released.
2321
2322 * New features for SVR4
2323
2324GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2325shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2326only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2327
2328The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2329on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2330it prints the address mappings of the process.
2331
2332If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2333bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2334
2335 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2336
2337Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2338now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2339skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2340make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2341same code linked statically.
2342
2343 * New Getopt
2344
2345GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2346version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2347continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2348Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2349added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2350future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2351
2352 * Bugs fixed
2353
2354The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2355Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2356See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2357
2358
2359*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2360
2361 * New machines supported (host and target)
2362
2363Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2364NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2365Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2366
2367 * Almost SCO Unix support
2368
2369We had hoped to support:
2370SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2371(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2372that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2373about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2374
2375 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2376
2377GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2378debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2379is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2380send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2381reqired (if any).
2382
2383 * New Readline
2384
2385GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2386is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2387required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2388
2389 * Bugs fixed
2390
2391The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2392Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2393See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2394
2395 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2396
2397GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2398supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2399symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2400
2401Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2402mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2403debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2404mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2405version 2.
2406
2407Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2408really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2409line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2410variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2411situation somewhat.
2412
2413When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2414However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2415methods.
2416
2417We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2418DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2419encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2420
2421
2422*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2423
2424 * Improved configuration
2425
2426Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2427Porting BFD is simpler.
2428
2429 * Stepping improved
2430
2431The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2432of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2433in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2434function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2435
2436 * Bug fixing
2437
2438Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2439
2440 * New host supported (not target)
2441
2442Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2443
2444
2445*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2446
2447 * Multiple source language support
2448
2449GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2450It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2451and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2452language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2453You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2454`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2455
2456 * GDB and Modula-2
2457
2458GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2459currently under development at the State University of New York at
2460Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2461continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2462
2463Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2464debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2465symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2466
2467There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2468in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2469
2470 * set write on/off
2471
2472GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2473a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2474the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2475by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2476effect immediately.
2477
2478 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2479
2480When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2481shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2482The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2483examining core files.
2484
2485 * set listsize
2486
2487You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2488The default is 10.
2489
2490 * New machines supported (host and target)
2491
2492SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2493Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2494Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2495
2496 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2497
2498IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2499
2500 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2501
2502AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2503AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2504Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2505
2506 * New remote interfaces
2507
2508AMD 29000 Adapt
2509AMD 29000 Minimon
2510
2511
2512*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2513
2514 * New Facilities
2515
2516Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2517
2518Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2519target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2520is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2521remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2522remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2523also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2524using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2525stub on the target system.
2526
2527New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2528
2529GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2530library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2531object file types such as a.out and coff.
2532
2533There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2534refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2535
2536
2537 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2538
2539All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2540by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2541
2542For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2543``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2544Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2545
2546What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2547print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2548will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2549all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2550
2551confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2552 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2553 it is already running. Default is ON.
2554
2555editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2556 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2557 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2558 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2559 Default is ON.
2560
2561history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2562 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2563 or the value of the environment variable
2564 GDBHISTFILE.
2565
2566history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2567 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2568 HISTSIZE.
2569
2570history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2571 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2572 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2573
2574history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2575 history expansion will be performed on
2576 command line input. The default is OFF.
2577
2578radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2579 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2580 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2581
2582height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2583 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2584 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2585 variable TERM.
2586
2587width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2588 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2589 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2590 variable TERM.
2591
2592Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2593``set width'' instead.
2594
2595print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2596 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2597 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2598 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2599
2600print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2601 is OFF.
2602
2603print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2604 "raw" form if off.
2605
2606print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2607 like instructions.
2608
2609print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2610
2611
2612 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2613
2614The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2615new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2616are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2617window.
2618
2619
2620 * Support for Shared Libraries
2621
2622GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2623Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2624before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2625happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2626At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2627from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2628shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2629It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2630
2631sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2632 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2633 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2634
2635info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2636
2637
2638 * Watchpoints
2639
2640A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2641expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2642tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2643quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2644problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2645more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2646
2647watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2648
2649info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2650
2651delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2652disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2653enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2654
2655
2656 * C++ multiple inheritance
2657
2658When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2659for C++ programs.
2660
2661 * C++ exception handling
2662
2663Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2664ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2665the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2666handler's context).
2667
2668catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2669 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2670 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2671
2672info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2673 current stack frame.
2674
2675
2676 * Minor command changes
2677
2678The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2679command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2680is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2681
2682The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2683at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2684frames without printing.
2685
2686 * New directory command
2687
2688'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2689The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2690about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2691with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2692find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2693
2694 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2695
2696For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2697for more details.
2698
2699GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2700two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2701Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2702where the program that you are debugging will run.