]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
2012-01-24 Pedro Alves <palves@redhat.com>
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
8d5b6c2b 4*** Changes since GDB 7.4
d6e00af6 5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
9
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10 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
11 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
12
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13* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
14 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
15
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16* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
17 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
18
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19* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
20 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
21 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
22 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
23 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
24 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
25
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26* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
27 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
28 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
29 build/libcpp/expr.c.
30
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31* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
32 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
33
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34*** Changes in GDB 7.4
35
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36* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
37 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
38 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
39 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
40 inferior changes.
41
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42* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
43 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
44
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45* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
46 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
47 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
48 target hardware watchpoint.
49
50 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
51 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
52 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
53 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
54
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55* Python scripting
56
32d1c362 57 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 58 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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59 existing one.
60
3a7bf607 61 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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62 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
63 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
64 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
65 now "message", which just prints the error message without
66 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 67
baacfb07 68 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 69 Python API.
713389e0 70
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71 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
72 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 73 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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74 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
75 corresponding value.
76
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77 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
78 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
79 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
80 on GDB start-up.
81
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82 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
83 static_block will return the global and static blocks
84 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
85 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
86
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87 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
88
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89 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
90 "gdb.breakpoints".
91
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92 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
93 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
94 available in the CLI.
95
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96 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
97 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
98 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
99 "some_type.items()".
100
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101 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
102 new object file.
103
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104 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
105 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
106 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
107 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
108 any anonymous fields.
109
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110* MI changes
111
112 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
113 "solib-event".
114
115 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
116 "=breakpoint-modified".
117
118 ** New command -ada-task-info.
119
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120* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
121 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
122 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
123 lives.
124
125 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
126 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
127 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
128 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
129 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
130
131 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
132 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
133
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134* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
135 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
136 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
137 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
138 use this option to specify where to find it.
139
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140* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
141 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
142 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
143 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
144 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
145 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
146 section in the user manual for more details.
147
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148* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
149 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
150 become available after that.
151
71eba9c2 152* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 153
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154* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
155 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
156 gcc version 4.7.
157
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158* New commands
159
160!SHELL COMMAND
161 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
162 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
163
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164* Changed commands
165
166watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
167 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
168 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
169
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170info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
171 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
172 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
173
71eba9c2 174info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
175 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
176 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
177 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
178 name starts with a hyphen.
179
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180collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
181 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
182 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
183 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
184 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
185 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
186 number of bytes that will be collected.
187
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188tstart [NOTES]
189 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
190 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
191 setting the variable trace-notes.
192
193tstop [NOTES]
194 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
195 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
196 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
197 trace-stop-notes.
198
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199* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
200 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
201 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
202 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
203 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
204 is running.
205
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206* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
207 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
208 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
209
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210* New options
211
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212set extended-prompt
213show extended-prompt
214 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
215 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
216 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
217 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
218 prompt is displayed.
219
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220set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
221show print entry-values
222 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
223 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
224 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
225
226set debug entry-values
227show debug entry-values
228 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
229 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
230
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231set basenames-may-differ
232show basenames-may-differ
233 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
234 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
235 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
236 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
237 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
238 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
239 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
240 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
241
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242set trace-user
243show trace-user
244set trace-notes
245show trace-notes
246 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
247 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
248 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
249 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
250
251set trace-stop-notes
252show trace-stop-notes
253 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
254 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
255 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
256 started by someone else.
257
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258* New remote packets
259
260QTEnable
261
262 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
263
264QTDisable
265
266 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
267
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268QTNotes
269
270 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
271
272qTP
273
274 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
275
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276qTMinFTPILen
277
278 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
279 be placed.
280
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281* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
282 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
283
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284* New targets
285
286Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
287
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288* New Simulators
289
290Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
291
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292*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
293
294* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
295
d6e00af6 296*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 297
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298* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
299 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
300 matches the given regular expression.
301
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302* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
303
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304* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
305 dumping the instruction opcodes.
306
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307* New command line options
308
309-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
310 This is mostly for testing purposes.
311
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312* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
313 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
314
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315* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
316 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
317 source path list instead of augmenting it.
318
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319* GDB now understands thread names.
320
321 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
322 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
323
324 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
325 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
326
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327* OpenCL C
328 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
329 has been integrated into GDB.
330
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331* Python scripting
332
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333 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
334 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
335 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
336
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337 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
338 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
339 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
340 and allows for more dynamic content.
341
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342 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
343 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
344 have an is_valid method.
345
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346 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
347 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
348 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
349
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350 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
351
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352 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
353 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
354 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
355 that function like so:
356
357 result = some_value (10,20)
358
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359 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
360 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
361 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
362
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363 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
364 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
365 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
366 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
367 New function: register_pretty_printer.
368
369 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
370 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
371
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372 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
373
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374 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
375 selected thread.
376
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377 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
378 holds the thread's name.
379
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380 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
381 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 382 occurring in the process being debugged.
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383 The following events are currently supported:
384 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
385 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
386 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
387
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388* C++ Improvements:
389
390 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
391 instantiation. For example, if you have:
392
393 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
394
395 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
396 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
397 was added to GCC 4.5.
398
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399 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
400 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
401 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
402 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
403 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
404 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
405
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406* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
407 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
408 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
409 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
410 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
411
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412* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
413 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
414 execution to a label.
415
416* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
417 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
418 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
419 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
420
b56df873 421* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 422 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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423 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
424 of scope.
425
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426* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
427
428 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
429 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
430 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
431 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
432 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
433 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
434
435 (gdb) info threads
436 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
437
438 While now you see this:
439
440 (gdb) info threads
441 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
442
443 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
444 dumps.
445
446 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
447 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
448 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
449 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
450
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451* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
452 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
453 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
454 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
455 section in the user manual for more details.
456
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457* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
458
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459 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
460 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 461
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462 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
463
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464* New native configurations
465
466ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
467
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468* New targets:
469
470Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
471
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472* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
473 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
474 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
475 in the GDB user manual.
476
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477* Guile support was removed.
478
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479* New features in the GNU simulator
480
481 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
482
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483 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
484
76b8507d 485*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 486
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487* Shared library support for remote targets by default
488
489 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
490 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
491 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
492 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
493 was always disabled for such configurations.
494
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495* C++ Improvements:
496
497 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
498
499 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
500 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
501 For example:
502 namespace A
503 {
504 class B { };
505 void foo (B) { }
506 }
507 ...
508 A::B b
509 foo(b)
510 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
511 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
512 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
513
514 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
515
516 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
517 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
518 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
519 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
520 entry.
521 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
522 mentioned flavors of operators.
523
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524 ** static const class members
525
526 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
527 class definition has been fixed.
528
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529* Windows Thread Information Block access.
530
531 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
532 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
533 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
534 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
535 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
536 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
537
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538* Static tracepoints
539
540 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
541 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
542 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
543 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
544 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
545 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
546 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
547 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
548 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
549 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
550 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
551 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
552 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
553 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
554 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
555 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
556 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
557 the "New remote packets" section below.
558
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559* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
560
561 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
562 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
563 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
564 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
565
566* Observer mode
567
568 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
569 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
570 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
571 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
572 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
573 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
574 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
575
576* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
577 current thread.
578
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579* New remote packets
580
581qGetTIBAddr
582
583 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
584
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585qRelocInsn
586
587 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
588 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
589 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
590 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
591 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
592 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
593
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594qTfSTM, qTsSTM
595
596 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
597
598qTSTMat
599
600 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
601 program.
602
603qXfer:statictrace:read
604
605 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
606 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
607 to gdb's qSupported query.
608
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609QAllow
610
611 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
612
613QTDPsrc
614
615 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
616 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
617
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DE
618* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
619 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
620 a directory.
621
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PA
622* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
623
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PA
624 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
625 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
626 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
627 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
628
629 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
630 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
631 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
632 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
633 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
634 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
635 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
636
637 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
638 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 639
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640 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
641
c8d5aac9
L
642* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
643 it understands register description.
644
7c953934
TT
645* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
646
8685c86f
L
647* X86 general purpose registers
648
649 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
650 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
651 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
652 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
653 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
654
95a42b64 655* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
656 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
657 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
658 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
659 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
660 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 661
8bd10a10
CM
662* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
663 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
664 in the specified file.
665
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PA
666* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
667 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
668 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
669 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
670 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
671 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
672 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
673 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
674 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
675 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
676
6149aea9
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677* New commands
678
f1421989
HZ
679eval template, expressions...
680 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
681 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
682
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PA
683set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
684show target-file-system-kind
685 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
686 names.
687
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PA
688save breakpoints <filename>
689 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
690 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
691 definitions, use the `source' command.
692
693`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
694is now deprecated.
695
0fb4aa4b
PA
696info static-tracepoint-markers
697 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
698
699strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
700 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
701 function, line, address, or marker ID.
702
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SS
703set observer on|off
704show observer
705 Enable and disable observer mode.
706
707set may-write-registers on|off
708set may-write-memory on|off
709set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
710set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
711set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
712set may-interrupt on|off
713 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
714 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
715 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
716 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
717 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
718 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
719 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
720
721set record memory-query on|off
722show record memory-query
723 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
724 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
725
53a71c06
CR
726* Changed commands
727
728disassemble
729 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
730
f3e9a817
PM
731* Python scripting
732
9279c692
JB
733** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
734 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
735 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
736 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
737 GDB using Python' in the manual.
738
adc36818 739** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
740 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
741 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
742 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 743
fa33c3cd 744** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
745 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
746
747** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
748
749** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 750
967cf477
DE
751** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
752
8a1ea21f
DE
753** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
754 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
755 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
756
a7bdde9e
VP
757* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
758there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
759tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
760regular breakpoints.
761
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PA
762* New targets
763
764ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
765
6aecb9c2
JB
766* D language support.
767 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
768 language.
769
431e49aa
TJB
770* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
771 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
772 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
773 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
774 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
775
776* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
777 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
778 conditions of the form:
779
780 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
781
782 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
783 interface mentioned above.
784
bfbf3774 785*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 786
4eef138c
TT
787* C++ Improvements
788
789 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
790
791 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
792 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
793 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
794 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
795 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
796
4eef138c
TT
797 ** Bug Fixes
798
799 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
800 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
801 qualified name.
802
803 ** Cast Operators
804
805 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
806 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
807
2d1c1221
ME
808* New targets
809
810Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 811Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
812
813* New Simulators
814
815Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 816Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 817
6c95b8df
PA
818* Multi-program debugging.
819
820 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
821 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
822 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
823 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
824 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
825 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
826 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
827 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
828
d5551862
SS
829* New tracing features
830
831 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
832
833 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
834
835 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
836 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
837 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
838 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
839 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
840 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
841 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
842 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
843 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
844 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 845
d5551862 846 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
847
848 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
849 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
850 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
851 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
852 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
853 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
854 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
855 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
856 the regular trace command.
857
d5551862
SS
858 ** Disconnected tracing
859
860 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
861 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
862 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
863 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
864 connection is lost unexpectedly.
865
00bf0b85
SS
866 ** Trace files
867
868 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
869 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
870 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
871 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
872 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
873 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
874 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
875
876 ** Circular trace buffer
877
878 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
879 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
880 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
881 not be available for all target agents.
882
21a0512e
PP
883* Changed commands
884
885disassemble
886 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
887 the arguments to be comma-separated.
888
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DJ
889info variables
890 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
891 which only declare a variable are not shown.
892
fb2e7cb4
JB
893source
894 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
895 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
896 support.
897
898 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
899 "set script-extension" (see below).
900
6c95b8df
PA
901* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
902
399cd161
MS
903record save [<FILENAME>]
904 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
905 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
906
907record restore <FILENAME>
908 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
909 earlier time, for replay debugging.
910
6c95b8df
PA
911add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
912 Add a new inferior.
913
914clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
915 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
916 inferior has loaded.
917
918remove-inferior ID
919 Remove an inferior.
920
921maint info program-spaces
922 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
923
9a7071a8
JB
924set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
925show remote interrupt-sequence
926 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
927 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
928 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
929 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
930 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
931
932set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
933show remote interrupt-on-connect
934 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
935 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
936 Linux kernel.
937
938set remotebreak [on | off]
939show remotebreak
940Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
941
f61e138d
SS
942tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
943 Create or modify a trace state variable.
944
945info tvariables
946 List trace state variables and their values.
947
948delete tvariable $NAME ...
949 Delete one or more trace state variables.
950
6da95a67
SS
951teval EXPR, ...
952 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
953 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
954
7a697b8d
SS
955ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
956 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
957
b0f02ee9
JK
958* New expression syntax
959
960 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
961 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
962
6c95b8df
PA
963* New options
964
965set follow-exec-mode new|same
966show follow-exec-mode
967 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
968 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
969 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
970
236f1d4d
SS
971set default-collect EXPR, ...
972show default-collect
973 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
974 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
975 such as registers or a critical global variable.
976
d5551862
SS
977set disconnected-tracing
978show disconnected-tracing
979 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
980 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
981 upon disconnection.
982
4daf5ac0
SS
983set circular-trace-buffer
984show circular-trace-buffer
985 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
986 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
987 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
988 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
989
fb2e7cb4
JB
990set script-extension off|soft|strict
991show script-extension
992 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
993 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
994 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
995 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
996 evaluation failed.
997 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
998
2b71fc8e
JB
999set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1000show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1001 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1002 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1003 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1004 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1005 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1006 is on.
1007
de2e5182
TT
1008* Python API Improvements
1009
1010 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1011 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1012 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1013
1014 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1015 `is_base_class' attribute.
1016
1017 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1018
1019 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1020 evaluate an expression.
1021
f61e138d
SS
1022* New remote packets
1023
1024QTDV
1025 Define a trace state variable.
1026
1027qTV
1028 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1029
d5551862
SS
1030QTDisconnected
1031 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1032
4daf5ac0
SS
1033QTBuffer:circular
1034 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1035
d5551862
SS
1036qTfP, qTsP
1037 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1038
2d483d34
MS
1039* Bug fixes
1040
1041Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1042
6e0e5977
JB
1043Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1044much more reliable. In particular:
1045 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1046 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1047 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1048 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1049 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1050 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1051 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1052 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1053 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1054 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1055 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1056 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1057 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1058 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1059 non-threaded programs.
1060
93c26624
JK
1061PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1062This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1063libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1064executable program.
1065
abc7453d 1066*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1067
4efc6507
DE
1068* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1069dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1070them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1071for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1072"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1073
782b2b07
SS
1074* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1075breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1076or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1077the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1078for tracepoint actions.
1079
53a71c06
CR
1080* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1081raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1082modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1083
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1084* Process record and replay
1085
1086 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1087 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1088 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1089 execute commands.
1090
64644d9b
MS
1091* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1092step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1093set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1094reverse execution.
1095
b9412953
DD
1096* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1097feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
10982.6.28 or later.
1099
6c7a06a3
TT
1100* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1101target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1102char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1103literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1104U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1105`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1106system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1107the installation instructions for more information.
1108
f1838a98
UW
1109* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1110remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1111with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1112the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1113
55333a84
DE
1114* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1115and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1116
7f6a6314
PM
1117* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1118now complete on file names.
1119
65d12d83
TT
1120* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1121completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1122For instance, consider:
1123
1124 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1125 # struct example variable;
1126 (gdb) p variable.
1127
1128If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1129completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1130
edb3359d
DJ
1131* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1132the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1133
2fae03e8
TT
1134* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1135operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1136macros.
1137
47a3467a 1138* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1139the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1140implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1141
1142* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1143registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1144can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1145and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1146
08388c79
DE
1147* New remote packets
1148
1149qSearch:memory:
1150 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1151
a6f3e723
SL
1152QStartNoAckMode
1153 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1154 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1155 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1156
d7713ae0
EZ
1157vKill
1158 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1159 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1160
07e059b5
VP
1161qXfer:osdata:read
1162 Obtains additional operating system information
1163
47a3467a
PA
1164qXfer:siginfo:read
1165qXfer:siginfo:write
1166 Read or write additional signal information.
1167
060871df
PA
1168* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1169
1170 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1171 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1172 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1173
c055b101 1174* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1175DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1176
1177* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1178and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1179`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1180
31fffb02
CS
1181* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1182with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1183
88d8a8e0
JB
1184* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1185
7f99b190
JB
1186* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1187
ccd213ac
DJ
1188* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1189which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1190
1fddbabb 1191* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1192list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1193
a0ef4274
DJ
1194* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1195conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1196have also been fixed.
1197
bfb8797a 1198* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1199From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1200are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1201
71c25dea
TT
1202* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1203example, given:
1204
1205 template<typename T> class C { };
1206 C<char const *> c;
1207
1208GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1209
1210 ptype C<char const *>
1211 ptype C<char const*>
1212 ptype C<const char *>
1213 ptype C<const char*>
1214
ccd213ac
DJ
1215* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1216
1217 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1218 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1219
7ae0e2a2
UW
1220 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1221 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1222 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1223
a6f3e723
SL
1224 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1225 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1226
da8bd9a3
DJ
1227 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1228 gdbserver.
1229
d70e31dd
DE
1230 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1231 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1232
1233 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1234 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1235 as appropriate.
1236
d57a3c85
TJB
1237* Python scripting
1238
1239 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1240 available is determined at configure time.
1241
d8906c6f
TJB
1242 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1243
aadc346a
JB
1244* Ada tasking support
1245
1246 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1247 been introduced:
1248
1249 info tasks
1250 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1251 info task N
1252 Print detailed information about task number N.
1253 task
1254 Print the task number of the current task.
1255 task N
1256 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1257
adb483fe
DJ
1258* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1259add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1260
2277426b
PA
1261* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1262
1263 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1264 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1265 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1266 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1267 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1268 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1269 below.
1270
08d16641
PA
1271* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1272"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1273information.
1274
e35359c5
UW
1275* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1276to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1277architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1278See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1279more information.
1280
85e747d2
UW
1281* Multi-architecture debugging.
1282
1283 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1284 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1285 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1286 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1287 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1288
1289* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1290use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1291Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1292powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1293--enable-targets configure option.
1294
11ade57a
PA
1295* Non-stop mode debugging.
1296
1297 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1298 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1299 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1300 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1301 section in the user manual for more information.
1302
1303 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1304 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1305 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1306 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1307 extensions on linux targets.
1308
d7713ae0 1309* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1310
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1311catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1312 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1313 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1314 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1315 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1316 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1317 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1318 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1319 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1320
08388c79
DE
1321find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1322 val1 [, val2, ...]
1323 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1324
d57a3c85
TJB
1325maint set python print-stack
1326maint show python print-stack
1327 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1328
1329python [CODE]
1330 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1331
d7713ae0
EZ
1332macro define
1333macro list
1334macro undef
1335 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1336 interactively.
1337
1338info os processes
1339 Show operating system information about processes.
1340
2277426b
PA
1341info inferiors
1342 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1343
1344inferior NUM
1345 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1346
1347detach inferior NUM
1348 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1349
1350kill inferior NUM
1351 Kill inferior number NUM.
1352
d7713ae0
EZ
1353* New options
1354
3285f3fe
UW
1355set spu stop-on-load
1356show spu stop-on-load
1357 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1358
ff1a52c6
UW
1359set spu auto-flush-cache
1360show spu auto-flush-cache
1361 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1362 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1363
d7713ae0
EZ
1364set sh calling-convention
1365show sh calling-convention
1366 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1367
e0a3ce09 1368set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1369show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1370 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1371
1372set disassemble-next-line
1373show disassemble-next-line
1374 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1375 the debuggee stops.
1376
1377set remote noack-packet
1378show remote noack-packet
1379 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1380 under "New remote packets."
1381
1382set remote query-attached-packet
1383show remote query-attached-packet
1384 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1385
1386set remote read-siginfo-object
1387show remote read-siginfo-object
1388 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1389 packet.
1390
1391set remote write-siginfo-object
1392show remote write-siginfo-object
1393 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1394 packet.
1395
40ab02ce
MS
1396set remote reverse-continue
1397show remote reverse-continue
1398 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1399
1400set remote reverse-step
1401show remote reverse-step
1402 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1403
d7713ae0
EZ
1404set displaced-stepping
1405show displaced-stepping
1406 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1407 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1408 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1409
1410set debug displaced
1411show debug displaced
1412 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1413
1414maint set internal-error
1415maint show internal-error
1416 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1417
1418maint set internal-warning
1419maint show internal-warning
1420 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1421
ccd213ac
DJ
1422set exec-wrapper
1423show exec-wrapper
1424unset exec-wrapper
1425 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1426
aad4b048
JB
1427set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1428show multiple-symbols
1429 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1430 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1431 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1432
74960c60
VP
1433set breakpoint always-inserted
1434show breakpoint always-inserted
1435 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1436 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1437 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1438
0428b8f5
DJ
1439set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1440show arm fallback-mode
1441set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1442show arm force-mode
1443 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1444 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1445 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1446 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1447
10568435
JK
1448set disable-randomization
1449show disable-randomization
1450 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1451 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1452 multiple debugging sessions.
1453
d7713ae0
EZ
1454set non-stop
1455show non-stop
1456 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1457 a breakpoint.
1458
b3eb342c 1459set target-async
d7713ae0 1460show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1461 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1462 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1463 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1464 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1465
6c7a06a3
TT
1466set target-wide-charset
1467show target-wide-charset
1468 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1469 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1470
84603566
SL
1471set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1472show tcp auto-retry
1473set tcp connect-timeout
1474show tcp connect-timeout
1475 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1476 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1477 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1478
17a37d48
PP
1479set libthread-db-search-path
1480show libthread-db-search-path
1481 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1482 libthread_db.
1483
d4db2f36
PA
1484set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1485show schedule-multiple
1486 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1487 the current process.
1488
4e5d721f
DE
1489set stack-cache
1490show stack-cache
1491 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1492 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1493 affecting correctness.
1494
910c5da8
JB
1495set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1496show interactive-mode
1497 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1498 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1499 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1500 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1501 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1502
2277426b
PA
1503* Removed commands
1504
1505info forks
1506 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1507 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1508 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1509 command.
1510
1511fork NUM
1512 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1513 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1514 alias for the `fork' command.
1515
1516process PID
1517 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1518 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1519 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1520
1521delete fork NUM
1522 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1523 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1524 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1525 fork' command.
1526
1527detach fork NUM
1528 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1529 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1530 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1531 fork' command.
1532
a80b95ba
TG
1533* New native configurations
1534
1535x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1536
b8bfd3ed
JB
1537x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1538
75a2d5e7
TT
1539* New targets
1540
c28c63d8 1541Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1542x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1543x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1544S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1545
6de3146c
PA
1546* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1547 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1548
d5cbbe6e
JB
1549* Removed commands
1550
1551catch load
1552catch unload
1553 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1554
75feb17d 1555*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1556
af5ca30d
NH
1557* New native configurations
1558
1559NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1560Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1561
1562* New targets
1563
1564NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1565Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1566
7a404eba
PA
1567* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1568
1569 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1570 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1571 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1572 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1573
430ebac9
PA
1574* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1575(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1576
fe6fbf8b 1577* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1578is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1579
1580* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1581including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1582and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1583
10665d76
JB
1584* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1585accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1586more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1587
7cc46491
DJ
1588* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1589
d71340b8
DJ
1590* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1591registers on PowerPC targets.
1592
523c4513
DJ
1593* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1594targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1595
a6b151f1
DJ
1596* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1597commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1598
2d717e4f
DJ
1599* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1600extended-remote mode.
1601
24a836bd 1602* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1603The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1604error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1605The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1606
d0c678e6
UW
1607* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1608building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1609target architectures.
1610
d64a946d
TJB
1611* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1612Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1613now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1614stored in two consecutive float registers.
1615
ee163bf5
VP
1616* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1617breakpoints now.
1618
b93b6ca7 1619* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1620Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1621include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1622 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1623 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1624 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1625 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1626 of an assignment
1627 - Improved command completion in Ada
1628 - Several bug fixes
1629
d001be7a
DJ
1630* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1631process.
1632
a6b151f1
DJ
1633* New commands
1634
6d53d0af
JB
1635set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1636show print frame-arguments
1637 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1638 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1639
a6b151f1
DJ
1640remote put
1641remote get
1642remote delete
1643 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1644
1645* New MI commands
1646
1647-target-file-put
1648-target-file-get
1649-target-file-delete
1650 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1651
1652* New remote packets
1653
1654vFile:open:
1655vFile:close:
1656vFile:pread:
1657vFile:pwrite:
1658vFile:unlink:
1659 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1660
2d717e4f
DJ
1661vAttach
1662 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1663 mode.
1664
1665vRun
1666 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1667
8d5f9c6f 1668*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1669
19d378fc
MS
1670* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1671bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1672Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1673
3a40aaa0
UW
1674* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1675symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1676-Bsymbolic linker option.
1677
a6ec25f2
BW
1678* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1679recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1680is not supported.
1681
6dd09645
JB
1682* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1683frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1684
c9bb8148
DJ
1685* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
168632-bit or 64-bit register values.
1687
0d5de010
DJ
1688* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1689
23181151
DJ
1690* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1691target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1692a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1693
ea37ba09
DJ
1694* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1695automatically displayed as character or string data.
1696
1697* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1698arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1699as strings.
e1f48ead 1700
123dc839
DJ
1701* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1702for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1703only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1704
05a4558a
DJ
1705* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1706iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1707
7c963485
PA
1708* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1709ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1710has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1711
b18be20d
DJ
1712* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1713
0ca420ce
UW
1714* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1715
31d99776
DJ
1716* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1717layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1718segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1719
a4642986
MR
1720* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1721immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1722
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1723* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1724"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1725packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1726where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1727Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1728
1729* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1730(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1731
1732* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1733according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1734
c9bb8148
DJ
1735* New commands
1736
23776285
MR
1737set remoteflow
1738show remoteflow
1739 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1740 when debugging using remote targets.
1741
c9bb8148
DJ
1742set mem inaccessible-by-default
1743show mem inaccessible-by-default
1744 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1745 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1746 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1747 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1748 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1749
1750set breakpoint auto-hw
1751show breakpoint auto-hw
1752 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1753 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1754 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1755 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1756 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1757 including "next" and "finish".
1758
0e420bd8
JB
1759catch exception
1760catch exception unhandled
1761 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1762
1763catch assert
1764 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1765
f822c95b
DJ
1766set sysroot
1767show sysroot
1768 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1769 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1770 an alias to "set sysroot".
1771
83cc5c53
UW
1772info spu
1773 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1774 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1775 architecture.
1776
bd372731
MK
1777* New native configurations
1778
1779OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1780
23181151
DJ
1781set tdesc filename
1782unset tdesc filename
1783show tdesc filename
1784 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1785 not query the target for its built-in description.
1786
c9bb8148
DJ
1787* New targets
1788
54fe9172 1789OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1790MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1791Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1792
6dd09645
JB
1793* New remote packets
1794
1795QPassSignals:
1796 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1797 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1798
23181151
DJ
1799qXfer:features:read:
1800 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1801 features.
6dd09645 1802
83cc5c53
UW
1803qXfer:spu:read:
1804qXfer:spu:write:
1805 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1806 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1807
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1808qXfer:libraries:read:
1809 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1810 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1811 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1812 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1813
483367ee
DJ
1814* Removed targets
1815
1816Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1817
d08950c4
UW
1818alpha*-*-osf1*
1819alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1820d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1821hppa*-*-hiux*
1822i[34567]86-ncr-*
1823i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1824i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1825i[34567]86-*-netware*
1826i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1827i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1828i[34567]86-*-sco*
1829i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1830i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1831i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1832i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1833i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1834i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1835i[34567]86-*-isc*
1836m68*-cisco*-*
1837m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1838mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1839rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1840sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1841
7ce59000
DJ
1842* Other removed features
1843
1844target abug
1845target cpu32bug
1846target est
1847target rom68k
1848
1849 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1850
ea35711c
DJ
1851target hms
1852target e7000
1853target sh3
1854target sh3e
1855
1856 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1857 H8/300.
1858
1859target ocd
1860
1861 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1862 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1863 interfaces.
1864
7ce59000
DJ
1865DWARF 1 support
1866
1867 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1868 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1869
54d61198
DJ
1870Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1871
1872 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1873 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1874 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1875 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1876
ea35711c
DJ
1877MIPS ".pdr" sections
1878
1879 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1880 in debugging information.
1881
1882Scheme support
1883
1884 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1885 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1886
1a69e1e4
DJ
1887set mips stack-arg-size
1888set mips saved-gpreg-size
1889
1890 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1891
6dd09645 1892*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1893
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1894* New targets
1895
1896Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1897Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1898
6aec2e11
DJ
1899* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1900(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1901running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1902
1903* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1904Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1905supported.
1906
17218d91
DJ
1907* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1908broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1909
9ebce043
DJ
1910* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1911stub provides the required support.
1912
7d3d3ece
DJ
1913* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1914longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1915
4f8253f3
JB
1916* New commands
1917
1918set substitute-path
1919unset substitute-path
1920show substitute-path
1921 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1922 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1923 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1924 between compilation and debugging.
1925
9fa66fd7
AS
1926set trace-commands
1927show trace-commands
1928 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1929 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1930 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1931
1f5befc1
DJ
1932* REMOVED features
1933
1934The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1935
2ec3381a
DJ
1936Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1937an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1938
3d00d119
DJ
1939The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1940
be2a5f71
DJ
1941* New remote packets
1942
1943qSupported:
1944 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1945 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1946 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1947 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1948 target.
1949
0876f84a
DJ
1950qXfer:auxv:read:
1951 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1952 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1953
9ebce043
DJ
1954qXfer:memory-map:read:
1955 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1956 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1957
1958vFlashErase:
1959vFlashWrite:
1960vFlashDone:
1961 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1962
0876f84a
DJ
1963* Removed remote packets
1964
1965qPart:auxv:read:
1966 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1967 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1968
e374b601 1969*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1970
96309189
MS
1971* New targets
1972
1973Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1974
1975Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1976
53e5f3cf
AS
1977* New commands
1978
1979init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1980 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1981
ac264b3b
MS
1982The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1983
1984checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1985
1986restart <n> Return the program state to a
1987 previously saved state.
1988
1989info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1990
1991delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1992
1993set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1994 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1995
1996info forks List forks of the user program that
1997 are available to be debugged.
1998
1999fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2000 forks of the user program that are
2001 available to be debugged.
2002
2003delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2004 that are available to be debugged (and
2005 kill the forked process).
2006
2007detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2008 that are available to be debugged (and
2009 allow the process to continue).
2010
3950dc3f
NS
2011* New architecture
2012
2013Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2014
0ea3f30e
DJ
2015* Improved Windows host support
2016
2017GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2018native console support, and remote communications using either
2019network sockets or serial ports.
2020
f79daebb
GM
2021* Improved Modula-2 language support
2022
2023GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2024basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2025pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2026printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2027written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2028GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2029
acab6ab2
MM
2030* REMOVED features
2031
2032The ARM rdi-share module.
2033
f4267320
DJ
2034The Netware NLM debug server.
2035
53e5f3cf 2036*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2037
e0ecbda1
MK
2038* New native configurations
2039
02a677ac 2040OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2041OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2042
d64a6579
KB
2043* New targets
2044
2045Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2046
b33a6190
AS
2047* New command line options
2048
2049--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2050--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2051 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2052--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2053 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2054 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2055 with the --command (-x) option.
2056
11dced61
AC
2057* Deprecated commands removed
2058
2059The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2060removed:
2061
2062 Command Replacement
2063 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2064 othernames set arm disassembler
2065 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2066 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2067 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2068 regs info registers
2069
6fe85783
MK
2070* New BSD user-level threads support
2071
2072It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2073library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2074configurations are:
2075
2076FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2077FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2078OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2079
2080Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2081are not yet supported.
2082
5260ca71
MS
2083* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2084(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2085
e84ecc99
AC
2086* REMOVED configurations and files
2087
2088VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2089Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2090National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2091
31e35378
JB
2092* New "set print array-indexes" command
2093
2094After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2095when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2096behavior.
2097
e85e5c83
MK
2098* VAX floating point support
2099
2100GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2101
d91e9901
AS
2102* User-defined command support
2103
2104In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2105to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2106section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2107
f2cb65ca
MC
2108*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2109
f47b1503
AS
2110* New command line option
2111
2112GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2113debugging.
2114
f2cb65ca
MC
2115* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2116
2117GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2118information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2119by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2120proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2121to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2122
d08c0230
AC
2123* Internationalization
2124
2125When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2126internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2127continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2128
117ea3cf
PH
2129* Ada
2130
2131Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2132implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2133into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2134
d08c0230
AC
2135* New native configurations
2136
2137GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2138
2139* Remote 'p' packet
2140
2141GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2142packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2143
2144* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2145
2146GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2147The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2148features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2149i386 application).
2150
2151GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2152compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2153continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2154configurations:
2155
2156hppa-*-hpux
2157ia64-*-aix
2158mips-*-irix*
2159*-*-lynx
2160mips-*-linux-gnu
2161sds protocol
2162xdr protocol
2163powerpc bdm protocol
2164
2165Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2166made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2167
2168* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2169
2170Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2171been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2172configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2173permanently REMOVED.
2174
2175h8300-*-*
2176mcore-*-*
2177mn10300-*-*
2178ns32k-*-*
2179sh64-*-*
2180v850-*-*
2181
ebb7c577
AC
2182*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2183
2184* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2185
2186When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2187heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2188been fixed.
2189
2190* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2191
2192When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2193fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2194IRIX long double values).
2195
2196* VAX and "next"
2197
2198A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2199command. This problem has been fixed.
2200
860660cb 2201*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2202
0dea2468
AC
2203* Fix for ``many threads''
2204
2205On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2206rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2207error message:
2208
2209 ptrace: No such process.
2210 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2211
2212This problem has been fixed.
2213
2c07db7a
AC
2214* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2215
2216Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2217GDB to dump core).
2218
c23968a2
JB
2219* New ``start'' command.
2220
2221This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2222
71009278
MK
2223* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2224
2225Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2226live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2227platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2228
2229FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2230FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2231NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2232NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2233NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2234OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2235OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2236OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2237OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2238
3c0b7db2
AC
2239* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2240
2241Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2242These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2243of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2244call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2245signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2246
73cc75f3
AC
2247Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2248features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2249include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2250
7243600a
BF
2251* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2252
6f606e1c
MK
2253* New native configurations
2254
97dc871c 2255GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2256OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2257OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2258OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2259OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2260NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2261OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2262
a1b461bf
AC
2263* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2264
2265GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2266The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2267including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2268migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2269compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2270work, was also included.
2271
2272GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2273module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2274
2275h8300-*-*
2276mcore-*-*
2277mn10300-*-*
2278ns32k-*-*
2279sh64-*-*
2280v850-*-*
2281xstormy16-*-*
2282
2283Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2284made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2285
3c7012f5
AC
2286* REMOVED configurations and files
2287
2288Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2289Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2290Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2291Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2292Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2293AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2294Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2295decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2296riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2297sonymips mips-sony-*
2298sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2299
e5fe55f7
AC
2300*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2301
2302* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2303
2304The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2305GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2306command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2307program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2308with GDB".
2309
2310* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2311
2312Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2313libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2314cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2315GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2316shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2317the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2318are created.
2319
2320Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2321
2322* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2323
2324The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2325non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2326compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2327
2328* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2329
2330Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2331wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2332
2333* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2334
2335The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2336permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2337systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2338
2339* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2340
2341Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2342has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2343
2344* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2345
2346GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2347its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2348panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2349
2350* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2351
2352When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2353by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2354not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2355
faae5abe 2356*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2357
9175c9a3
MC
2358* Removed --with-mmalloc
2359
2360Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2361conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2362
3cc87ec0
MK
2363* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2364
2365The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2366the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2367and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2368you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2369
f0424ef6
MK
2370* Revised SPARC target
2371
2372The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2373FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2374support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2375from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2376(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2377
59659be2
ILT
2378* New C++ demangler
2379
2380GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2381names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2382with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2383programs.
2384
9e08b29b
DJ
2385* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2386
2387GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2388arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2389encountered these.
2390
8dfe8985
DC
2391* C++ nested types and namespaces
2392
2393GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2394improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2395is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2396Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2397namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2398"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2399frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2400if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2401GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2402
cced5e27
MK
2403* New native configurations
2404
2405NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2406OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2407OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2408OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2409OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2410
b4b4b794
KI
2411* New debugging protocols
2412
2413M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2414
7989c619
AC
2415* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2416
2417The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2418and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2419tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2420
5994185b
AC
2421* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2422
2423Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2424been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2425configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2426permanently REMOVED.
2427
2428Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2429Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2430Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2431Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2432Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2433AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2434Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2435decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2436riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2437sonymips mips-sony-*
2438sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2439
0ddabb4c
AC
2440* REMOVED configurations and files
2441
2442SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2443SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2444Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2445Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2446H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2447HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2448HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2449HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2450PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2451386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2452Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2453 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2454 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2455SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2456SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2457Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2458Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2459
c7f1390e
DJ
2460*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2461
1fe43d45
AC
2462* Objective-C
2463
2464Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2465integrated into GDB.
2466
e6beb428
AC
2467* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2468
2469DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2470information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2471By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2472backtraces.
2473
2474The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2475have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2476DWARF 2 CFI support.
2477
2478* Hosted file I/O.
2479
2480GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2481file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2482remote protocol documentation for details.
2483
2484* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2485
2486All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2487architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2488to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2489ppc32 on ppc64).
2490
2491* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2492
2493GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2494per-thread variables.
2495
2496* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2497
2498GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2499GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2500
2501* Separate debug info.
2502
2503GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2504automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2505of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2506system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2507and optional debug files.
2508
2509* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2510
2511DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2512describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2513debugger.
2514
2515GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2516for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2517
2518* Java
2519
2520A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2521Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2522considered "useable".
2523
85f8f974
DJ
2524* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2525
2526The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2527commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2528kernel.
2529
0fac0b41
DJ
2530* GDB supports logging output to a file
2531
2532There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2533used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2534
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2535* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2536
2537The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2538disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2539command.
2540
e286caf2 2541* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2542
2543The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2544registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2545
d28f9cdf
DJ
2546* Profiling support
2547
2548A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2549be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2550session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2551"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2552data, for more informative profiling results.
2553
da0f9dcd
AC
2554* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2555
2556The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2557option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2558"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2559
2560Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2561removed.
2562
fb9b6b35
JJ
2563Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2564Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2565Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2566 in a subsequent -var-update.
2567
954a4db8
MK
2568* New native configurations.
2569
2570FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2571
6760f9e6
JB
2572* Multi-arched targets.
2573
b4263afa 2574HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2575Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2576
1b831c93
AC
2577* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2578
2579Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2580been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2581configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2582permanently REMOVED.
2583
8b0e5691 2584Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2585Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2586H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2587HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2588HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2589HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2590PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2591Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2592 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2593 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2594Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2595Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2596
5835abe7
NC
2597* REMOVED configurations and files
2598
2599V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2600Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2601IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2602i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2603i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2604i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2605HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2606 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2607 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2608Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2609Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2610Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2611OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2612I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2613
a094c6fb
AC
2614* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2615
2616The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2617the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2618context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2619address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2620The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2621
299ffc64 2622*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2623
46248966
AC
2624* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2625
2626When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2627`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2628in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2629library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2630shared libs like mad''.
2631
b9d14705 2632* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2633
b9d14705
DJ
2634Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2635the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2636arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2637powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2638
e0e9281e
JB
2639* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2640
2641GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2642and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2643they expand.
2644
dd73b9bb
AC
2645The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2646invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2647
2648The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2649macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2650
e0e9281e
JB
2651Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2652information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2653your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2654information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2655
2250ee0c
CV
2656* Multi-arched targets.
2657
6e3ba3b8
JT
2658DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2659DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2660NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2661National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2662Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2663Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2664
cd9bfe15 2665* New targets.
e33ce519 2666
456f8b9d
DB
2667Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2668
e33ce519 2669
da8ca43d
JT
2670* New native configurations
2671
2672Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2673SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2674MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2675UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2676
cd9bfe15
AC
2677* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2678
2679Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2680been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2681configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2682permanently REMOVED.
2683
92eb23c5 2684Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2685OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2686IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2687Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2688Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2689Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2690i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2691i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2692i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2693HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2694 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2695 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2696I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2697
db034ac5
AC
2698* OBSOLETE languages
2699
2700CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2701
cd9bfe15
AC
2702* REMOVED configurations and files
2703
2704AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2705A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2706AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2707AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2708AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2709
2710testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2711
20f01a46
DH
2712* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2713
2714This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2715commands. The default is 1024.
2716
a5941fbf
MK
2717* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2718
2719Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2720
89743e04
MS
2721* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2722
2723These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2724to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2725from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2726
9fb14e79
JB
2727* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2728
2729The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2730including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2731of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2732
2037aebb
AC
2733*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2734
2735* New targets.
2736
2737Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2738
2739* Bug fixes
2740
2741gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2742mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2743Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2744
2745gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2746dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2747Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2748
2749Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2750Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2751By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2752
2753i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2754avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2755By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2756
37057839 2757*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2758
1a703748
MS
2759* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2760
2761This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2762really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2763In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2764target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2765This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2766(notably embedded) targets.
2767
cefd4ef5
MS
2768* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2769
55241689
AC
2770This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2771process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2772GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2773hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2774
352ed7b4
MS
2775* New command line option
2776
2777GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2778
2779* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2780
2781There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2782command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2783a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2784be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2785open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2786issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2787a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2788it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2789GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2790is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2791
fe419ffc
RE
2792* Changes in ARM configurations.
2793
2794Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2795configuration is fully multi-arch.
2796
eb7cedd9
MK
2797* New native configurations
2798
fe419ffc 2799ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2800x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2801AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2802Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2803
c9f63e6b
CV
2804* New targets
2805
2806Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2807
9b4ff276
AC
2808* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2809
2810Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2811been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2812configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2813permanently REMOVED.
2814
2815AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2816A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2817AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2818AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2819AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2820
b4ceaee6 2821testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2822
e2caac18
AC
2823* REMOVED configurations and files
2824
2825TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2826WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2827PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2828PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2829PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2830Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2831Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2832 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2833SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2834Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2835Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2836ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2837Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2838
c2a727fa
TT
2839* Changes to command line processing
2840
2841The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2842for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2843
467d8519
TT
2844* Changes to key bindings
2845
2846There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2847
7072a954
AC
2848*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2849
2850Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2851
2852Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2853corrupted.
2854
2855Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2856
2857Numerous documentation fixes.
2858
2859Numerous testsuite fixes.
2860
34f47bc4 2861*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2862
2863* New native configurations
2864
2865Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2866x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2867MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2868MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2869ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2870s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2871
bf64bfd6
AC
2872* New targets
2873
def90278 2874Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2875CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2876UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2877
17e78a56 2878* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2879
2880x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2881Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2882Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2883 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2884TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2885WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2886Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2887PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2888PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2889PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2890SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2891Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2892ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2893Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2894
17e78a56
AC
2895stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2896kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2897
7fcca85b
AC
2898Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2899been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2900configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2901permanently REMOVED.
2902
a196c81c 2903* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2904
2905Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2906Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2907Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2908ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2909Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2910ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2911
6d6b80e5 2912* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2913
6d6b80e5 2914GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2915sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2916present.
2917
bf64bfd6
AC
2918* Other news:
2919
e23194cb
EZ
2920* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2921
2922* The MI enabled by default.
2923
2924The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2925revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2926engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2927using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2928which is now deprecated.
2929
2930* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2931
2932GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2933main features are supported:
2934
2935 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2936
2937 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2938 extension;
2939
2940 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2941
2942 - a Pascal expression parser.
2943
2944However, some important features are not yet supported.
2945
2946 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2947
2948 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2949
2950 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2951 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2952
2953 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2954
2955 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2956
2957* Changes in completion.
2958
2959Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2960to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2961users expect at the shell prompt.
2962
2963Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2964`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2965program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2966files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2967be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2968considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2969name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2970
2971`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2972
2973* New platform-independent commands:
2974
2975It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2976hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2977documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2978
2979* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2980
d7275149
MK
2981Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2982revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2983many threads as your system allows you to have.
2984
e23194cb
EZ
2985Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2986
d7275149
MK
2987Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2988multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2989
2990* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2991
2992Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2993
e23194cb
EZ
2994GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2995debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2996supported.)
2997
2998* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2999
3000Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3001breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3002implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3003put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3004and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3005registers.
3006
3007The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3008debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3009watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3010
3011* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3012
3013New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3014the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3015
3016New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3017display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3018IDT.
3019
3020New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3021from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3022New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3023a given linear address.
3024
3025GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3026program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3027which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3028
3029DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3030
6c56c069
EZ
3031It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3032
e23194cb
EZ
3033* Changes in documentation.
3034
3035All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3036Documentation License.
3037
3038Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3039manual.
3040
3041TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3042
3043Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3044manual.
3045
3046The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3047documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3048hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3049
5d6640b1
AC
3050* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3051
3052The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3053``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3054contents of this file.
3055
1a1d8446
AC
3056* gdba.el deleted
3057
3058GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3059
9debab2f 3060*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3061
c63ce875
EZ
3062* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3063
3064Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3065programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3066displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3067greater level of detail.
3068
3069* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3070
3071It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3072bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3073on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3074written.
3075
3076* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3077
3078The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3079necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3080machines ``out of the box''.
3081
3082The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3083possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3084signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3085would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3086interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3087
3088It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3089standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3090even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3091and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3092terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3093
3094The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3095enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3096also works.
3097
3098DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3099GDB.
3100
3101It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3102directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3103times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3104breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3105
ed9a39eb
JM
3106* New native configurations
3107
3108ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3109PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3110
7a292a7a
SS
3111* New targets
3112
96baa820 3113Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3114x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3115PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3116TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3117
085dd6e6
JM
3118* OBSOLETE configurations
3119
3120Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3121Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3122Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3123ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3124Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3125
9debab2f
AC
3126Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3127but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3128these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3129be permanently REMOVED.
3130
5330533d
SS
3131* Gould support removed
3132
3133Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3134
bc9e5bbf
AC
3135* New features for SVR4
3136
3137On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3138without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3139load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3140
3141* Many C++ enhancements
3142
3143C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3144in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3145
adf40b2e
JM
3146* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3147
3148A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3149sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3150with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3151``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3152
3153 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3154 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3155
43e526b9
JM
3156* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3157
3158A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3159expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3160instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3161
3162The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3163added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3164
96baa820
JM
3165* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3166
3167The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3168``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3169include ``set remote P-packet''.
3170
11cf8741
JM
3171* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3172
3173The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3174accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3175``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3176
7876dd43
DB
3177* ``apropos'' command added.
3178
3179The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3180documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3181try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3182
bc9e5bbf
AC
3183* New MI interface
3184
3185A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3186interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3187process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3188"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3189enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3190
3191 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3192
c906108c
SS
3193*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3194
3195* New native configurations
3196
3197HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3198HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3199M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3200
3201* New targets
3202
3203Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3204Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3205Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3206
3207* OBSOLETE configurations
3208
3209Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3210
3211Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3212but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3213these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3214be permanently REMOVED.
3215
3216* ANSI/ISO C
3217
3218As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3219buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3220containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3221use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3222available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3223configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3224information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3225already.
3226
3227* Readline 2.2
3228
3229GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3230
3231* set extension-language
3232
3233You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3234languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3235you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3236 set extension-language .c c++
3237The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3238and their associated languages.
3239
3240* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3241
3242When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3243you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3244PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3245
3246 set processor NAME
3247
3248sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3249following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3250
3251 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3252 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3253 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3254 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3255 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3256 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3257 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3258 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3259 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3260 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3261 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3262
3263At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3264special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3265registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3266only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3267
3268* HP-UX support
3269
3270Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3271more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3272library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3273support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3274for xdb and dbx commands.
3275
3276* Catchpoints
3277
3278HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3279generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3280to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3281
3282This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3283argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3284output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3285
3286* Debugging across forks
3287
3288On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3289in the inferior.
3290
3291* TUI
3292
3293HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3294it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3295configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3296
3297* GDB remote protocol additions
3298
3299A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3300Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3301fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3302allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3303
3304For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3305full 64-bit address. The command
3306
3307 set remoteaddresssize 32
3308
3309can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3310the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3311will be discarded.
3312
3313In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3314command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3315
3316 maint packet heythere
3317
3318sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3319disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3320time.
3321
3322The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3323target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3324downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3325
3326* Tracing can collect general expressions
3327
3328You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3329further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3330doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3331
3332* mask-address variable for Mips
3333
3334For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3335a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3336of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3337
3338* Higher serial baud rates
3339
3340GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3341230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3342to achieve all of these rates.)
3343
3344* i960 simulator
3345
3346The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3347builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3348
3349
3350*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3351
3352* New native configurations
3353
3354Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3355Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3356Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3357PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3358PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3359Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3360Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3361
3362* New targets
3363
3364Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3365Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3366Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3367Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3368MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3369MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3370MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3371Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3372Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3373Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3374NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3375
3376* New debugging protocols
3377
3378ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3379M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3380DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3381PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3382PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3383Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3384
3385* DWARF 2
3386
3387All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3388format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3389information.
3390
3391* Java frontend
3392
3393GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3394only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3395
3396* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3397
3398For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3399loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3400locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3401
3402* Live range splitting
3403
3404GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3405range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3406more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3407
3408* Hurd support
3409
3410GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3411updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3412
3413* ARM Thumb support
3414
3415GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3416instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3417instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3418accordingly.
3419
3420* MIPS16 support
3421
3422GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3423instruction set.
3424
3425* Overlay support
3426
3427GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3428linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3429will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3430control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3431additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3432in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3433
3434* info symbol
3435
3436The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3437the symbol at the specified address.
3438
3439* Trace support
3440
3441The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3442asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3443extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3444includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3445file tracepoint.c for more details.
3446
3447* MIPS simulator
3448
3449Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3450by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3451of most MIPS variants.
3452
3453* Sparc simulator
3454
3455Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3456by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3457Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3458
3459* set architecture
3460
3461For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3462basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3463architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3464the possible architectures.
3465
3466*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3467
3468* New native configurations
3469
3470Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3471M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3472PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3473PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3474PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3475RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3476
3477* New targets
3478
3479ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3480I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3481MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3482MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3483PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3484Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3485Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3486
3487* PowerPC simulator
3488
3489The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3490contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3491PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3492basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3493performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3494
3495* Solaris 2.5
3496
3497GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3498
3499* Windows 95/NT native
3500
3501GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3502To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3503which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3504Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3505ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3506
3507* dont-repeat command
3508
3509If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3510command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3511useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3512extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3513
3514* Send break instead of ^C
3515
3516The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3517rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3518GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3519
3520* Remote protocol timeout
3521
3522The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3523that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3524to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3525
3526* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3527
3528By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3529loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3530stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3531when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3532in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3533
3534Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3535/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3536automatically on hpux10.
3537
3538* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3539
3540Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3541
3542* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3543
3544When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3545may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3546the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3547every character. The default value is 1050.
3548
3549* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3550
3551If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3552a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3553replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3554details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3555remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3556to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3557
3558* Speedups for remote debugging
3559
3560GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3561the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3562and more efficient S-record downloading.
3563
3564* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3565
3566GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3567Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3568
3569*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3570
3571* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3572
3573The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3574can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3575
3576* Remote targets use caching
3577
3578Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3579remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3580it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3581debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3582off' turns the the data cache off.
3583
3584* Remote targets may have threads
3585
3586The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3587in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3588gdb/remote.c for details.
3589
3590* NetROM support
3591
3592If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3593support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3594acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3595write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3596support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3597another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3598sequence is something like
3599
3600 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3601 load <prog>
3602 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3603
3604* Macintosh host
3605
3606GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3607may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3608it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3609available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3610device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3611directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3612scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3613mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3614
3615* Autoconf
3616
3617GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3618but does simplify configuration and building.
3619
3620* hpux10
3621
3622GDB now supports hpux10.
3623
3624*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3625
3626* New native configurations
3627
3628x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3629x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3630NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3631Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3632
3633* New targets
3634
3635A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3636HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3637CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3638PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3639WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3640
3641* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3642
3643GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3644possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3645filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3646the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3647if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3648
3649* Arguments to user-defined commands
3650
3651User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3652Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3653trivial example:
3654define adder
3655 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3656
3657To execute the command use:
3658adder 1 2 3
3659
3660Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3661Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3662use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3663
3664* New `if' and `while' commands
3665
3666This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3667commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3668expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3669execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3670terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3671`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3672if the expression is zero.
3673
3674* Fortran source language mode
3675
3676GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3677Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3678variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3679with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3680Fortran compilers.
3681
3682* Better HPUX support
3683
3684Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3685running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3686processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3687for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3688that behavior do the following before running the program:
3689
3690 adb -w a.out
3691 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3692 control-d
3693
3694This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3695To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3696
3697 adb -w a.out
3698 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3699 control-d
3700
3701You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3702the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3703external linkage.
3704
3705GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3706HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3707
3708* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3709
3710You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3711commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3712current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3713"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3714associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3715configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3716
3717* New DOS host serial code
3718
3719This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3720no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3721a PC's serial port.
3722
3723*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3724
3725* New "complete" command
3726
3727This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3728were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3729
3730* Trailing space optional in prompt
3731
3732"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3733allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3734
3735* Breakpoint hit counts
3736
3737"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3738has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3739can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3740to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3741less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3742that breakpoint.
3743
3744* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3745
3746"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3747an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3748arrays actually contain only short strings.
3749
3750* Shared library breakpoints
3751
3752In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3753breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3754
3755* Hardware watchpoints
3756
3757There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3758targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3759
55241689 3760Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3761
3762* Annotations
3763
3764Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3765and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3766
3767* Improved Irix 5 support
3768
3769GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3770
3771* Improved HPPA support
3772
3773GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3774
3775* New native configurations
3776
3777Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3778HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3779Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3780RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3781
3782* New targets
3783
3784OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3785MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3786Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3787
3788* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3789
3790There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3791This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3792
3793* Fixes
3794
3795As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3796and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3797
3798*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3799
3800* Irix 5 is now supported
3801
3802* HPPA support
3803
3804GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3805to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3806GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3807of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3808can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3809
3810
3811*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3812
3813* User visible changes:
3814
3815* Remote Debugging
3816
3817The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3818target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3819debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3820integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3821debugging info for the mips target).
3822
3823* DEC Alpha native support
3824
3825GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3826debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3827work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3828Alpha-specific notes.
3829
3830* Preliminary thread implementation
3831
3832GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3833
3834* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3835
3836This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3837to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3838for details).
3839
3840* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3841
3842This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3843mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3844call methods, ...etc.
3845
3846*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3847
3848 * User visible changes:
3849
3850Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3851supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3852other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3853somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3854
3855Filename completion now works.
3856
3857When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3858arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3859addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3860
3861All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3862vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3863should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3864your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3865to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3866
3867 * DEC alpha support
3868
3869This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3870cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3871
3872
3873*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3874
3875 * Testsuite
3876
3877This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3878The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3879via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3880
3881 * C++ demangling
3882
3883'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3884emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3885Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3886disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3887use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3888
3889 * Simulators
3890
3891GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3892So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3893Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3894
3895 * New targets supported
3896
3897H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3898H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3899SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3900Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3901IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3902
3903Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3904version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3905GO32 memory extender.
3906
3907 * New remote protocols
3908
3909MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3910
3911 * New source languages supported
3912
3913This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3914used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3915into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3916
3917
3918*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3919
3920 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3921
3922GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3923version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3924University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3925compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3926format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3927(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3928
3929Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3930
3931 * Faster and better demangling
3932
3933We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3934demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3935character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3936only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3937This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3938increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3939symbol lookups.
3940
3941`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3942from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3943compiler does not actually implement.
3944
3945 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3946
3947In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3948inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3949recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3950very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3951The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3952circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3953fix.
3954
3955The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3956release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3957
3958 * Improved configure script
3959
3960The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3961you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3962host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3963done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3964
3965We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3966version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3967`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3968The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3969only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3970We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3971
3972 * Documentation improvements
3973
3974There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3975produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3976before submitting changes.
3977
3978The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3979M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3980`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3981you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3982a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3983
3984*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3985We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3986been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3987or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3988`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3989around this problem.
3990
3991 * New features
3992
3993GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3994the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3995`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3996the target program.
3997
3998The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3999how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4000
4001 * New native hosts supported
4002
4003HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4004386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4005
4006 * New targets supported
4007
4008AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4009
4010 * New file formats supported
4011
4012BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4013HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4014
4015 * Major bug fixes
4016
4017Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4018
4019We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4020printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4021
4022We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4023for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4024release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4025
4026You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4027will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4028
4029We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4030for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4031especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4032libraries.
4033
4034The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4035information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4036command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4037any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4038when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4039
4040 * Internal improvements
4041
4042GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4043debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4044
4045GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4046Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4047symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4048contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4049shared code that handles any of them.
4050
4051 * New command line options
4052
4053We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4054
4055 * Mmalloc licensing
4056
4057The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4058General Public License.
4059
4060*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4061
4062 * Host/native/target split
4063
4064GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4065hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4066target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4067local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4068ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4069
4070The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4071GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4072is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4073code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4074any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4075built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4076handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4077
4078GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4079It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4080plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4081
4082 * New hosts supported
4083
4084HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4085386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4086386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4087
4088 * New targets supported
4089
4090Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
409168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4092
4093 * New native hosts supported
4094
4095386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4096 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4097386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4098
4099 * New file formats supported
4100
4101BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4102supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4103format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4104
4105 * New commands
4106
4107`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4108`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4109These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4110
4111`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4112
4113You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4114scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4115prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4116executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4117
4118 * C++ improvements
4119
4120We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4121info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4122symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4123
4124Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4125
4126 * Major bug fixes
4127
4128The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4129fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4130by the compiler.
4131
4132We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4133support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4134
4135John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4136slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4137that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4138purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4139the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4140mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4141
4142Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4143about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4144completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4145we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4146
4147 * AMD 29k support
4148
4149A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4150specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4151calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4152usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4153in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4154
4155We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4156Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4157of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4158resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4159
4160 * Remote interfaces
4161
4162We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4163with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4164message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4165This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4166needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4167breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4168each instruction being stepped through.
4169
4170The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4171registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4172
4173There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4174find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4175Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4176processor with a serial port.
4177
4178 * Configuration
4179
4180Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4181`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4182supported, and what files each one uses.
4183
4184 * Library changes
4185
4186There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4187disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4188Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4189disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4190
4191The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4192Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4193can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4194grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4195
4196 * Documentation
4197
4198The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4199reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4200as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4201encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4202system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4203bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4204
4205And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4206
4207
4208*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4209
4210 * Better support for C++ function names
4211
4212GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4213names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4214(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4215single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4216Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4217
4218GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4219the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4220You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4221lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4222for the list of formats.
4223
4224 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4225
4226Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4227C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4228directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4229can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4230usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4231about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4232this problem.)
4233
4234 * New 'maintenance' command
4235
4236All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4237the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4238can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4239
4240 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4241 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4242 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4243 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4244 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4245 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4246
4247The following commands are new:
4248
4249 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4250 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4251 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4252
4253 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4254
4255We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4256(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4257be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4258read after argv processing.
4259
4260 * New hosts supported
4261
4262Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4263
55241689 4264GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4265
4266We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4267is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4268for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4269masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4270fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4271It costs extra.
4272
4273 * New targets supported
4274
4275Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4276
4277 * More smarts about finding #include files
4278
4279GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4280all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4281greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4282especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4283the one that contains your sources.
4284
4285We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4286breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4287try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4288
4289 * Interesting infernals change
4290
4291GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4292section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4293target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4294stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4295
4296 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4297
4298There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4299 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4300 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4301
4302See the ChangeLog for details.
4303
4304*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4305
4306 * New machines supported (host and target)
4307
4308IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4309
4310SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4311
4312 * New malloc package
4313
4314GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4315Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4316capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4317This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4318pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4319more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4320
4321 * info proc
4322
4323The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4324'help info proc' for details.
4325
4326 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4327
4328The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4329Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4330possible.
4331
4332 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4333
4334Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4335support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4336conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4337environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4338that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4339in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4340
4341 * Cross byte order fixes
4342
4343Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4344targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4345
4346 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4347
4348If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4349system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4350`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4351program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4352called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4353Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4354and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4355the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4356option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4357starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4358
4359You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4360the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4361information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4362slower, but makes future operations faster.
4363
4364The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4365build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4366A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4367use is:
4368
4369 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4370
4371The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4372It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4373shared across multiple host platforms.
4374
4375 * longjmp() handling
4376
4377GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4378siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4379all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4380platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4381
4382 * Solaris 2.0
4383
4384Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4385this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4386reading symbols.
4387
4388 * Bug fixes
4389
4390As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4391People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4392crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4393
4394*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4395
4396 * New machines supported (host and target)
4397
4398SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4399 (except core files)
4400BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4401Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4402
4403 * New machines supported (target)
4404
4405AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4406
4407 * C++ support
4408
4409GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4410The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4411per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4412
4413GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4414`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4415extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4416good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4417will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4418released.
4419
4420 * New features for SVR4
4421
4422GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4423shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4424only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4425
4426The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4427on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4428it prints the address mappings of the process.
4429
4430If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4431bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4432
4433 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4434
4435Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4436now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4437skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4438make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4439same code linked statically.
4440
4441 * New Getopt
4442
4443GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4444version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4445continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4446Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4447added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4448future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4449
4450 * Bugs fixed
4451
4452The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4453Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4454See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4455
4456
4457*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4458
4459 * New machines supported (host and target)
4460
4461Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4462NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4463Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4464
4465 * Almost SCO Unix support
4466
4467We had hoped to support:
4468SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4469(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4470that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4471about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4472
4473 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4474
4475GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4476debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4477is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4478send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4479reqired (if any).
4480
4481 * New Readline
4482
4483GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4484is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4485required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4486
4487 * Bugs fixed
4488
4489The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4490Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4491See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4492
4493 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4494
4495GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4496supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4497symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4498
4499Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4500mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4501debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4502mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4503version 2.
4504
4505Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4506really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4507line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4508variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4509situation somewhat.
4510
4511When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4512However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4513methods.
4514
4515We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4516DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4517encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4518
4519
4520*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4521
4522 * Improved configuration
4523
4524Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4525Porting BFD is simpler.
4526
4527 * Stepping improved
4528
4529The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4530of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4531in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4532function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4533
4534 * Bug fixing
4535
4536Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4537
4538 * New host supported (not target)
4539
4540Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4541
4542
4543*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4544
4545 * Multiple source language support
4546
4547GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4548It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4549and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4550language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4551You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4552`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4553
4554 * GDB and Modula-2
4555
4556GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4557currently under development at the State University of New York at
4558Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4559continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4560
4561Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4562debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4563symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4564
4565There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4566in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4567
4568 * set write on/off
4569
4570GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4571a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4572the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4573by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4574effect immediately.
4575
4576 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4577
4578When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4579shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4580The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4581examining core files.
4582
4583 * set listsize
4584
4585You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4586The default is 10.
4587
4588 * New machines supported (host and target)
4589
4590SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4591Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4592Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4593
4594 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4595
4596IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4597
4598 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4599
4600AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4601AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4602Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4603
4604 * New remote interfaces
4605
4606AMD 29000 Adapt
4607AMD 29000 Minimon
4608
4609
4610*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4611
4612 * New Facilities
4613
4614Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4615
4616Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4617target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4618is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4619remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4620remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4621also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4622using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4623stub on the target system.
4624
4625New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4626
4627GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4628library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4629object file types such as a.out and coff.
4630
4631There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4632refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4633
4634
4635 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4636
4637All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4638by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4639
4640For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4641``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4642Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4643
4644What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4645print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4646will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4647all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4648
4649confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4650 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4651 it is already running. Default is ON.
4652
4653editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4654 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4655 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4656 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4657 Default is ON.
4658
4659history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4660 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4661 or the value of the environment variable
4662 GDBHISTFILE.
4663
4664history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4665 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4666 HISTSIZE.
4667
4668history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4669 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4670 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4671
4672history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4673 history expansion will be performed on
4674 command line input. The default is OFF.
4675
4676radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4677 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4678 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4679
4680height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4681 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4682 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4683 variable TERM.
4684
4685width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4686 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4687 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4688 variable TERM.
4689
4690Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4691``set width'' instead.
4692
4693print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4694 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4695 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4696 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4697
4698print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4699 is OFF.
4700
4701print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4702 "raw" form if off.
4703
4704print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4705 like instructions.
4706
4707print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4708
4709
4710 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4711
4712The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4713new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4714are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4715window.
4716
4717
4718 * Support for Shared Libraries
4719
4720GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4721Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4722before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4723happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4724At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4725from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4726shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4727It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4728
4729sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4730 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4731 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4732
4733info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4734
4735
4736 * Watchpoints
4737
4738A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4739expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4740tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4741quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4742problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4743more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4744
4745watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4746
4747info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4748
4749delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4750disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4751enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4752
4753
4754 * C++ multiple inheritance
4755
4756When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4757for C++ programs.
4758
4759 * C++ exception handling
4760
4761Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4762ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4763the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4764handler's context).
4765
4766catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4767 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4768 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4769
4770info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4771 current stack frame.
4772
4773
4774 * Minor command changes
4775
4776The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4777command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4778is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4779
4780The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4781at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4782frames without printing.
4783
4784 * New directory command
4785
4786'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4787The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4788about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4789with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4790find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4791
4792 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4793
4794For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4795for more details.
4796
4797GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4798two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4799Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4800where the program that you are debugging will run.