]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
* gdb.texinfo (Data): Link to pretty-printing.
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
bfbf3774
JB
4*** Changes since GDB 7.1
5
8685c86f
L
6* X86 general purpose registers
7
8 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
9 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
10 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
11 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
12 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
13
f3e9a817
PM
14* Python scripting
15
16The GDB Python API now has access to symbols, symbol tables, and
17frame's code blocks.
18
05071a4d
PA
19* New targets
20
21ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
22
bfbf3774 23*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 24
4eef138c
TT
25* C++ Improvements
26
27 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
28
29 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
30 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
31 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
32 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
33 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
34
4eef138c
TT
35 ** Bug Fixes
36
37 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
38 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
39 qualified name.
40
41 ** Cast Operators
42
43 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
44 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
45
2d1c1221
ME
46* New targets
47
48Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 49Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
50
51* New Simulators
52
53Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 54Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 55
6c95b8df
PA
56* Multi-program debugging.
57
58 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
59 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
60 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
61 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
62 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
63 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
64 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
65 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
66
d5551862
SS
67* New tracing features
68
69 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
70
71 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
72
73 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
74 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
75 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
76 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
77 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
78 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
79 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
80 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
81 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
82 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 83
d5551862 84 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
85
86 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
87 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
88 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
89 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
90 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
91 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
92 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
93 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
94 the regular trace command.
95
d5551862
SS
96 ** Disconnected tracing
97
98 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
99 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
100 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
101 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
102 connection is lost unexpectedly.
103
00bf0b85
SS
104 ** Trace files
105
106 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
107 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
108 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
109 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
110 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
111 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
112 <name>".
113
21a0512e
PP
114* Changed commands
115
116disassemble
117 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
118 the arguments to be comma-separated.
119
0fe7935b
DJ
120info variables
121 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
122 which only declare a variable are not shown.
123
fb2e7cb4
JB
124source
125 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
126 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
127 support.
128
129 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
130 "set script-extension" (see below).
131
6c95b8df
PA
132* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
133
399cd161
MS
134record save [<FILENAME>]
135 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
136 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
137
138record restore <FILENAME>
139 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
140 earlier time, for replay debugging.
141
6c95b8df
PA
142add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
143 Add a new inferior.
144
145clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
146 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
147 inferior has loaded.
148
149remove-inferior ID
150 Remove an inferior.
151
152maint info program-spaces
153 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
154
9a7071a8
JB
155set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
156show remote interrupt-sequence
157 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
158 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
159 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
160 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
161 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
162
163set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
164show remote interrupt-on-connect
165 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
166 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
167 Linux kernel.
168
169set remotebreak [on | off]
170show remotebreak
171Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
172
f61e138d
SS
173tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
174 Create or modify a trace state variable.
175
176info tvariables
177 List trace state variables and their values.
178
179delete tvariable $NAME ...
180 Delete one or more trace state variables.
181
6da95a67
SS
182teval EXPR, ...
183 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
184 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
185
7a697b8d
SS
186ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
187 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
188
b0f02ee9
JK
189* New expression syntax
190
191 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
192 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
193
6c95b8df
PA
194* New options
195
196set follow-exec-mode new|same
197show follow-exec-mode
198 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
199 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
200 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
201
236f1d4d
SS
202set default-collect EXPR, ...
203show default-collect
204 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
205 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
206 such as registers or a critical global variable.
207
d5551862
SS
208set disconnected-tracing
209show disconnected-tracing
210 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
211 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
212 upon disconnection.
213
fb2e7cb4
JB
214set script-extension off|soft|strict
215show script-extension
216 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
217 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
218 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
219 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
220 evaluation failed.
221 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
222
2b71fc8e
JB
223set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
224show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
225 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
226 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
227 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
228 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
229 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
230 is on.
231
de2e5182
TT
232* Python API Improvements
233
234 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
235 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
236 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
237
238 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
239 `is_base_class' attribute.
240
241 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
242
243 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
244 evaluate an expression.
245
f61e138d
SS
246* New remote packets
247
248QTDV
249 Define a trace state variable.
250
251qTV
252 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
253
d5551862
SS
254QTDisconnected
255 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
256
257qTfP, qTsP
258 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
259
2d483d34
MS
260* Bug fixes
261
262Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
263
6e0e5977
JB
264Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
265much more reliable. In particular:
266 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
267 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
268 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
269 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
270 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
271 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
272 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
273 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
274 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
275 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
276 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
277 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
278 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
279 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
280 non-threaded programs.
281
93c26624
JK
282PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
283This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
284libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
285executable program.
286
abc7453d 287*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 288
4efc6507
DE
289* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
290dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
291them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
292for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
293"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
294
782b2b07
SS
295* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
296breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
297or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
298the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
299for tracepoint actions.
300
e6158f16 301* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
7280022e 302in hex as well as in symbolic form.
e6158f16 303
e7a8dbfb
HZ
304* Process record and replay
305
306 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
307 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
308 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
309 execute commands.
310
64644d9b
MS
311* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
312step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
313set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
314reverse execution.
315
b9412953
DD
316* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
317feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3182.6.28 or later.
319
6c7a06a3
TT
320* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
321target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
322char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
323literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
324U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
325`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
326system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
327the installation instructions for more information.
328
f1838a98
UW
329* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
330remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
331with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
332the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
333
55333a84
DE
334* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
335and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
336
7f6a6314
PM
337* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
338now complete on file names.
339
65d12d83
TT
340* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
341completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
342For instance, consider:
343
344 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
345 # struct example variable;
346 (gdb) p variable.
347
348If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
349completions will be "f1" and "f2".
350
edb3359d
DJ
351* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
352the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
353
2fae03e8
TT
354* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
355operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
356macros.
357
47a3467a 358* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
359the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
360implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
361
362* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
363registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
364can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
365and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 366
08388c79
DE
367* New remote packets
368
369qSearch:memory:
370 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
371
a6f3e723
SL
372QStartNoAckMode
373 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
374 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
375 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
376
d7713ae0
EZ
377vKill
378 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
379 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
380
07e059b5
VP
381qXfer:osdata:read
382 Obtains additional operating system information
383
47a3467a
PA
384qXfer:siginfo:read
385qXfer:siginfo:write
386 Read or write additional signal information.
387
060871df
PA
388* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
389
390 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
391 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
392 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
393
d14508fe
DE
394* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
395source+assembly.
396
c055b101 397* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 398DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
399
400* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
401and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
402`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 403
31fffb02
CS
404* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
405with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
406
88d8a8e0
JB
407* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
408
7f99b190
JB
409* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
410
ccd213ac
DJ
411* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
412which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
413
1fddbabb 414* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 415list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 416
a0ef4274
DJ
417* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
418conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
419have also been fixed.
420
bfb8797a 421* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
422From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
423are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 424
71c25dea
TT
425* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
426example, given:
427
428 template<typename T> class C { };
429 C<char const *> c;
430
431GDB will now correctly handle all of:
432
433 ptype C<char const *>
434 ptype C<char const*>
435 ptype C<const char *>
436 ptype C<const char*>
437
ccd213ac
DJ
438* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
439
440 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
441 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
442
7ae0e2a2
UW
443 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
444 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
445 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
446
a6f3e723
SL
447 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
448 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
449
da8bd9a3
DJ
450 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
451 gdbserver.
452
d70e31dd
DE
453 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
454 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
455
456 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
457 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
458 as appropriate.
459
d57a3c85
TJB
460* Python scripting
461
462 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
463 available is determined at configure time.
464
d8906c6f
TJB
465 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
466
aadc346a
JB
467* Ada tasking support
468
469 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
470 been introduced:
471
472 info tasks
473 Print the list of Ada tasks.
474 info task N
475 Print detailed information about task number N.
476 task
477 Print the task number of the current task.
478 task N
479 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
480
adb483fe
DJ
481* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
482add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
483
2277426b
PA
484* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
485
486 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
487 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
488 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
489 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
490 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
491 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
492 below.
493
08d16641
PA
494* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
495"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
496information.
497
e35359c5
UW
498* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
499to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
500architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
501See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
502more information.
503
85e747d2
UW
504* Multi-architecture debugging.
505
506 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
507 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
508 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
509 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
510 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
511
512* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
513use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
514Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
515powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
516--enable-targets configure option.
517
11ade57a
PA
518* Non-stop mode debugging.
519
520 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
521 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
522 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
523 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
524 section in the user manual for more information.
525
526 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
527 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
528 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
529 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
530 extensions on linux targets.
531
d7713ae0 532* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 533
a96d9b2e
SDJ
534catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
535 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
536 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
537 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
538 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
539 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
540 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
541 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
542 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
543
08388c79
DE
544find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
545 val1 [, val2, ...]
546 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
547
d57a3c85
TJB
548maint set python print-stack
549maint show python print-stack
550 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
551
552python [CODE]
553 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
554
d7713ae0
EZ
555macro define
556macro list
557macro undef
558 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
559 interactively.
560
561info os processes
562 Show operating system information about processes.
563
2277426b
PA
564info inferiors
565 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
566
567inferior NUM
568 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
569
570detach inferior NUM
571 Detach from inferior number NUM.
572
573kill inferior NUM
574 Kill inferior number NUM.
575
d7713ae0
EZ
576* New options
577
3285f3fe
UW
578set spu stop-on-load
579show spu stop-on-load
580 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
581
ff1a52c6
UW
582set spu auto-flush-cache
583show spu auto-flush-cache
584 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
585 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
586
d7713ae0
EZ
587set sh calling-convention
588show sh calling-convention
589 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
590
e0a3ce09 591set debug timestamp
75feb17d 592show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
593 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
594
595set disassemble-next-line
596show disassemble-next-line
597 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
598 the debuggee stops.
599
600set remote noack-packet
601show remote noack-packet
602 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
603 under "New remote packets."
604
605set remote query-attached-packet
606show remote query-attached-packet
607 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
608
609set remote read-siginfo-object
610show remote read-siginfo-object
611 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
612 packet.
613
614set remote write-siginfo-object
615show remote write-siginfo-object
616 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
617 packet.
618
40ab02ce
MS
619set remote reverse-continue
620show remote reverse-continue
621 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
622
623set remote reverse-step
624show remote reverse-step
625 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
626
d7713ae0
EZ
627set displaced-stepping
628show displaced-stepping
629 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
630 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
631 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
632
633set debug displaced
634show debug displaced
635 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
636
637maint set internal-error
638maint show internal-error
639 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
640
641maint set internal-warning
642maint show internal-warning
643 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 644
ccd213ac
DJ
645set exec-wrapper
646show exec-wrapper
647unset exec-wrapper
648 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 649
aad4b048
JB
650set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
651show multiple-symbols
652 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
653 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
654 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
655
74960c60
VP
656set breakpoint always-inserted
657show breakpoint always-inserted
658 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
659 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
660 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
661
0428b8f5
DJ
662set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
663show arm fallback-mode
664set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
665show arm force-mode
666 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
667 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
668 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
669 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
670
10568435
JK
671set disable-randomization
672show disable-randomization
673 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
674 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
675 multiple debugging sessions.
676
d7713ae0
EZ
677set non-stop
678show non-stop
679 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
680 a breakpoint.
681
b3eb342c 682set target-async
d7713ae0 683show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
684 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
685 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
686 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
687 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
688
6c7a06a3
TT
689set target-wide-charset
690show target-wide-charset
691 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
692 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
693
84603566
SL
694set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
695show tcp auto-retry
696set tcp connect-timeout
697show tcp connect-timeout
698 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
699 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
700 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
701
17a37d48
PP
702set libthread-db-search-path
703show libthread-db-search-path
704 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
705 libthread_db.
706
d4db2f36
PA
707set schedule-multiple (on|off)
708show schedule-multiple
709 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
710 the current process.
711
4e5d721f
DE
712set stack-cache
713show stack-cache
714 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
715 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
716 affecting correctness.
717
910c5da8
JB
718set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
719show interactive-mode
720 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
721 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
722 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
723 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
724 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
725
2277426b
PA
726* Removed commands
727
728info forks
729 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
730 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
731 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
732 command.
733
734fork NUM
735 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
736 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
737 alias for the `fork' command.
738
739process PID
740 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
741 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
742 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
743
744delete fork NUM
745 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
746 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
747 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
748 fork' command.
749
750detach fork NUM
751 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
752 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
753 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
754 fork' command.
755
a80b95ba
TG
756* New native configurations
757
758x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
759
b8bfd3ed
JB
760x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
761
75a2d5e7
TT
762* New targets
763
c28c63d8 764Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 765x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 766x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 767S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 768
6de3146c
PA
769* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
770 (mingw32ce) debugging.
771
d5cbbe6e
JB
772* Removed commands
773
774catch load
775catch unload
776 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
777
75feb17d 778*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 779
af5ca30d
NH
780* New native configurations
781
782NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 783Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
784
785* New targets
786
787NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 788Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 789
7a404eba
PA
790* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
791
792 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
793 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
794 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
795 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
796
430ebac9
PA
797* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
798(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
799
fe6fbf8b 800* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 801is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
802
803* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
804including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
805and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 806
10665d76
JB
807* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
808accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
809more than one contiguous range of addresses.
810
7cc46491
DJ
811* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
812
d71340b8
DJ
813* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
814registers on PowerPC targets.
815
523c4513
DJ
816* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
817targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
818
a6b151f1
DJ
819* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
820commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
821
2d717e4f
DJ
822* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
823extended-remote mode.
824
24a836bd 825* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
826The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
827error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
828The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 829
d0c678e6
UW
830* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
831building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
832target architectures.
833
d64a946d
TJB
834* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
835Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
836now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
837stored in two consecutive float registers.
838
ee163bf5
VP
839* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
840breakpoints now.
841
b93b6ca7 842* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
843Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
844include:
b93b6ca7
JB
845 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
846 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
847 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
848 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
849 of an assignment
850 - Improved command completion in Ada
851 - Several bug fixes
852
d001be7a
DJ
853* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
854process.
855
a6b151f1
DJ
856* New commands
857
6d53d0af
JB
858set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
859show print frame-arguments
860 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
861 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
862
a6b151f1
DJ
863remote put
864remote get
865remote delete
866 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
867
868* New MI commands
869
870-target-file-put
871-target-file-get
872-target-file-delete
873 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
874
875* New remote packets
876
877vFile:open:
878vFile:close:
879vFile:pread:
880vFile:pwrite:
881vFile:unlink:
882 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 883
2d717e4f
DJ
884vAttach
885 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
886 mode.
887
888vRun
889 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
890
8d5f9c6f 891*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 892
19d378fc
MS
893* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
894bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
895Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
896
3a40aaa0
UW
897* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
898symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
899-Bsymbolic linker option.
900
a6ec25f2
BW
901* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
902recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
903is not supported.
904
6dd09645
JB
905* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
906frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
907
c9bb8148
DJ
908* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
90932-bit or 64-bit register values.
910
0d5de010
DJ
911* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
912
23181151
DJ
913* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
914target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
915a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
916
ea37ba09
DJ
917* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
918automatically displayed as character or string data.
919
920* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
921arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
922as strings.
e1f48ead 923
123dc839
DJ
924* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
925for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 926only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 927
05a4558a
DJ
928* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
929iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 930
7c963485
PA
931* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
932ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
933has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
934
b18be20d
DJ
935* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
936
0ca420ce
UW
937* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
938
31d99776
DJ
939* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
940layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
941segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
942
a4642986
MR
943* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
944immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
945
cfa9d6d9
DJ
946* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
947"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
948packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
949where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
950Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
951
952* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
953(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
954
955* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
956according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 957
c9bb8148
DJ
958* New commands
959
23776285
MR
960set remoteflow
961show remoteflow
962 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
963 when debugging using remote targets.
964
c9bb8148
DJ
965set mem inaccessible-by-default
966show mem inaccessible-by-default
967 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
968 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
969 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
970 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
971 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
972
973set breakpoint auto-hw
974show breakpoint auto-hw
975 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
976 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
977 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
978 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
979 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
980 including "next" and "finish".
981
0e420bd8
JB
982catch exception
983catch exception unhandled
984 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
985
986catch assert
987 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
988
f822c95b
DJ
989set sysroot
990show sysroot
991 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
992 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
993 an alias to "set sysroot".
994
83cc5c53
UW
995info spu
996 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
997 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
998 architecture.
999
bd372731
MK
1000* New native configurations
1001
1002OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1003
23181151
DJ
1004set tdesc filename
1005unset tdesc filename
1006show tdesc filename
1007 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1008 not query the target for its built-in description.
1009
c9bb8148
DJ
1010* New targets
1011
54fe9172 1012OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1013MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1014Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1015
6dd09645
JB
1016* New remote packets
1017
1018QPassSignals:
1019 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1020 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1021
23181151
DJ
1022qXfer:features:read:
1023 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1024 features.
6dd09645 1025
83cc5c53
UW
1026qXfer:spu:read:
1027qXfer:spu:write:
1028 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1029 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1030
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1031qXfer:libraries:read:
1032 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1033 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1034 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1035 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1036
483367ee
DJ
1037* Removed targets
1038
1039Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1040
d08950c4
UW
1041alpha*-*-osf1*
1042alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1043d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1044hppa*-*-hiux*
1045i[34567]86-ncr-*
1046i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1047i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1048i[34567]86-*-netware*
1049i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1050i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1051i[34567]86-*-sco*
1052i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1053i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1054i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1055i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1056i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1057i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1058i[34567]86-*-isc*
1059m68*-cisco*-*
1060m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1061mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1062rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1063sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1064
7ce59000
DJ
1065* Other removed features
1066
1067target abug
1068target cpu32bug
1069target est
1070target rom68k
1071
1072 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1073
ea35711c
DJ
1074target hms
1075target e7000
1076target sh3
1077target sh3e
1078
1079 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1080 H8/300.
1081
1082target ocd
1083
1084 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1085 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1086 interfaces.
1087
7ce59000
DJ
1088DWARF 1 support
1089
1090 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1091 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1092
54d61198
DJ
1093Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1094
1095 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1096 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1097 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1098 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1099
ea35711c
DJ
1100MIPS ".pdr" sections
1101
1102 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1103 in debugging information.
1104
1105Scheme support
1106
1107 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1108 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1109
1a69e1e4
DJ
1110set mips stack-arg-size
1111set mips saved-gpreg-size
1112
1113 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1114
6dd09645 1115*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1116
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1117* New targets
1118
1119Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1120Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1121
6aec2e11
DJ
1122* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1123(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1124running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1125
1126* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1127Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1128supported.
1129
17218d91
DJ
1130* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1131broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1132
9ebce043
DJ
1133* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1134stub provides the required support.
1135
7d3d3ece
DJ
1136* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1137longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1138
4f8253f3
JB
1139* New commands
1140
1141set substitute-path
1142unset substitute-path
1143show substitute-path
1144 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1145 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1146 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1147 between compilation and debugging.
1148
9fa66fd7
AS
1149set trace-commands
1150show trace-commands
1151 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1152 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1153 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1154
1f5befc1
DJ
1155* REMOVED features
1156
1157The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1158
2ec3381a
DJ
1159Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1160an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1161
3d00d119
DJ
1162The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1163
be2a5f71
DJ
1164* New remote packets
1165
1166qSupported:
1167 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1168 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1169 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1170 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1171 target.
1172
0876f84a
DJ
1173qXfer:auxv:read:
1174 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1175 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1176
9ebce043
DJ
1177qXfer:memory-map:read:
1178 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1179 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1180
1181vFlashErase:
1182vFlashWrite:
1183vFlashDone:
1184 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1185
0876f84a
DJ
1186* Removed remote packets
1187
1188qPart:auxv:read:
1189 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1190 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1191
e374b601 1192*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1193
96309189
MS
1194* New targets
1195
1196Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1197
1198Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1199
53e5f3cf
AS
1200* New commands
1201
1202init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1203 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1204
ac264b3b
MS
1205The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1206
1207checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1208
1209restart <n> Return the program state to a
1210 previously saved state.
1211
1212info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1213
1214delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1215
1216set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1217 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1218
1219info forks List forks of the user program that
1220 are available to be debugged.
1221
1222fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1223 forks of the user program that are
1224 available to be debugged.
1225
1226delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1227 that are available to be debugged (and
1228 kill the forked process).
1229
1230detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1231 that are available to be debugged (and
1232 allow the process to continue).
1233
3950dc3f
NS
1234* New architecture
1235
1236Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1237
0ea3f30e
DJ
1238* Improved Windows host support
1239
1240GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1241native console support, and remote communications using either
1242network sockets or serial ports.
1243
f79daebb
GM
1244* Improved Modula-2 language support
1245
1246GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1247basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1248pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1249printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1250written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1251GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1252
acab6ab2
MM
1253* REMOVED features
1254
1255The ARM rdi-share module.
1256
f4267320
DJ
1257The Netware NLM debug server.
1258
53e5f3cf 1259*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1260
e0ecbda1
MK
1261* New native configurations
1262
02a677ac 1263OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1264OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1265
d64a6579
KB
1266* New targets
1267
1268Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1269
b33a6190
AS
1270* New command line options
1271
1272--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1273--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1274 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1275--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1276 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1277 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1278 with the --command (-x) option.
1279
11dced61
AC
1280* Deprecated commands removed
1281
1282The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1283removed:
1284
1285 Command Replacement
1286 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1287 othernames set arm disassembler
1288 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1289 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1290 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1291 regs info registers
1292
6fe85783
MK
1293* New BSD user-level threads support
1294
1295It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1296library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1297configurations are:
1298
1299FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1300FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1301OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1302
1303Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1304are not yet supported.
1305
5260ca71
MS
1306* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1307(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1308
e84ecc99
AC
1309* REMOVED configurations and files
1310
1311VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1312Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1313National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1314
31e35378
JB
1315* New "set print array-indexes" command
1316
1317After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1318when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1319behavior.
1320
e85e5c83
MK
1321* VAX floating point support
1322
1323GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1324
d91e9901
AS
1325* User-defined command support
1326
1327In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1328to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1329section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1330
f2cb65ca
MC
1331*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1332
f47b1503
AS
1333* New command line option
1334
1335GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1336debugging.
1337
f2cb65ca
MC
1338* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1339
1340GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1341information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1342by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1343proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1344to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1345
d08c0230
AC
1346* Internationalization
1347
1348When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1349internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1350continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1351
117ea3cf
PH
1352* Ada
1353
1354Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1355implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1356into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1357
d08c0230
AC
1358* New native configurations
1359
1360GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1361
1362* Remote 'p' packet
1363
1364GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1365packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1366
1367* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1368
1369GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1370The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1371features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1372i386 application).
1373
1374GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1375compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1376continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1377configurations:
1378
1379hppa-*-hpux
1380ia64-*-aix
1381mips-*-irix*
1382*-*-lynx
1383mips-*-linux-gnu
1384sds protocol
1385xdr protocol
1386powerpc bdm protocol
1387
1388Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1389made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1390
1391* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1392
1393Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1394been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1395configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1396permanently REMOVED.
1397
1398h8300-*-*
1399mcore-*-*
1400mn10300-*-*
1401ns32k-*-*
1402sh64-*-*
1403v850-*-*
1404
ebb7c577
AC
1405*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1406
1407* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1408
1409When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1410heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1411been fixed.
1412
1413* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1414
1415When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1416fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1417IRIX long double values).
1418
1419* VAX and "next"
1420
1421A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1422command. This problem has been fixed.
1423
860660cb 1424*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1425
0dea2468
AC
1426* Fix for ``many threads''
1427
1428On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1429rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1430error message:
1431
1432 ptrace: No such process.
1433 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1434
1435This problem has been fixed.
1436
2c07db7a
AC
1437* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1438
1439Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1440GDB to dump core).
1441
c23968a2
JB
1442* New ``start'' command.
1443
1444This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1445
71009278
MK
1446* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1447
1448Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1449live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1450platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1451
1452FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1453FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1454NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1455NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1456NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1457OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1458OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1459OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1460OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1461
3c0b7db2
AC
1462* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1463
1464Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1465These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1466of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1467call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1468signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1469
73cc75f3
AC
1470Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1471features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1472include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1473
7243600a
BF
1474* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1475
6f606e1c
MK
1476* New native configurations
1477
97dc871c 1478GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1479OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1480OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1481OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1482OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1483NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1484OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1485
a1b461bf
AC
1486* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1487
1488GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1489The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1490including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1491migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1492compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1493work, was also included.
1494
1495GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1496module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1497
1498h8300-*-*
1499mcore-*-*
1500mn10300-*-*
1501ns32k-*-*
1502sh64-*-*
1503v850-*-*
1504xstormy16-*-*
1505
1506Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1507made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1508
3c7012f5
AC
1509* REMOVED configurations and files
1510
1511Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1512Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1513Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1514Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1515Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1516AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1517Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1518decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1519riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1520sonymips mips-sony-*
1521sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1522
e5fe55f7
AC
1523*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1524
1525* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1526
1527The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1528GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1529command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1530program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1531with GDB".
1532
1533* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1534
1535Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1536libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1537cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1538GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1539shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1540the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1541are created.
1542
1543Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1544
1545* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1546
1547The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1548non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1549compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1550
1551* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1552
1553Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1554wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1555
1556* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1557
1558The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1559permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1560systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1561
1562* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1563
1564Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1565has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1566
1567* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1568
1569GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1570its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1571panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1572
1573* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1574
1575When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1576by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1577not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1578
faae5abe 1579*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1580
9175c9a3
MC
1581* Removed --with-mmalloc
1582
1583Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1584conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1585
3cc87ec0
MK
1586* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1587
1588The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1589the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1590and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1591you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1592
f0424ef6
MK
1593* Revised SPARC target
1594
1595The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1596FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1597support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1598from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1599(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1600
59659be2
ILT
1601* New C++ demangler
1602
1603GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1604names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1605with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1606programs.
1607
9e08b29b
DJ
1608* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1609
1610GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1611arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1612encountered these.
1613
8dfe8985
DC
1614* C++ nested types and namespaces
1615
1616GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1617improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1618is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1619Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1620namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1621"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1622frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1623if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1624GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1625
cced5e27
MK
1626* New native configurations
1627
1628NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1629OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1630OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1631OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1632OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1633
b4b4b794
KI
1634* New debugging protocols
1635
1636M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1637
7989c619
AC
1638* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1639
1640The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1641and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1642tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1643
5994185b
AC
1644* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1645
1646Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1647been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1648configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1649permanently REMOVED.
1650
1651Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1652Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1653Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1654Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1655Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1656AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1657Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1658decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1659riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1660sonymips mips-sony-*
1661sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1662
0ddabb4c
AC
1663* REMOVED configurations and files
1664
1665SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1666SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1667Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1668Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1669H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1670HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1671HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1672HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1673PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1674386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1675Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1676 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1677 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1678SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1679SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1680Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1681Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1682
c7f1390e
DJ
1683*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1684
1fe43d45
AC
1685* Objective-C
1686
1687Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1688integrated into GDB.
1689
e6beb428
AC
1690* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1691
1692DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1693information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1694By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1695backtraces.
1696
1697The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1698have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1699DWARF 2 CFI support.
1700
1701* Hosted file I/O.
1702
1703GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1704file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1705remote protocol documentation for details.
1706
1707* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1708
1709All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1710architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1711to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1712ppc32 on ppc64).
1713
1714* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1715
1716GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1717per-thread variables.
1718
1719* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1720
1721GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1722GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1723
1724* Separate debug info.
1725
1726GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1727automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1728of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1729system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1730and optional debug files.
1731
1732* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1733
1734DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1735describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1736debugger.
1737
1738GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1739for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1740
1741* Java
1742
1743A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1744Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1745considered "useable".
1746
85f8f974
DJ
1747* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1748
1749The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1750commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1751kernel.
1752
0fac0b41
DJ
1753* GDB supports logging output to a file
1754
1755There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1756used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1757
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1758* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1759
1760The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1761disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1762command.
1763
e286caf2 1764* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1765
1766The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1767registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1768
d28f9cdf
DJ
1769* Profiling support
1770
1771A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1772be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1773session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1774"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1775data, for more informative profiling results.
1776
da0f9dcd
AC
1777* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1778
1779The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1780option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1781"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1782
1783Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1784removed.
1785
fb9b6b35
JJ
1786Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1787Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1788Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1789 in a subsequent -var-update.
1790
954a4db8
MK
1791* New native configurations.
1792
1793FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1794
6760f9e6
JB
1795* Multi-arched targets.
1796
b4263afa 1797HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1798Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1799
1b831c93
AC
1800* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1801
1802Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1803been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1804configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1805permanently REMOVED.
1806
8b0e5691 1807Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1808Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1809H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1810HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1811HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1812HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1813PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1814Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1815 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1816 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1817Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1818Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1819
5835abe7
NC
1820* REMOVED configurations and files
1821
1822V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1823Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1824IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1825i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1826i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1827i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1828HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1829 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1830 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1831Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1832Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1833Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1834OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1835I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1836
a094c6fb
AC
1837* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1838
1839The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1840the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1841context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1842address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1843The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1844
299ffc64 1845*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1846
46248966
AC
1847* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1848
1849When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1850`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1851in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1852library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1853shared libs like mad''.
1854
b9d14705 1855* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1856
b9d14705
DJ
1857Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1858the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1859arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1860powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1861
e0e9281e
JB
1862* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1863
1864GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1865and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1866they expand.
1867
dd73b9bb
AC
1868The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1869invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1870
1871The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1872macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1873
e0e9281e
JB
1874Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1875information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1876your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1877information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1878
2250ee0c
CV
1879* Multi-arched targets.
1880
6e3ba3b8
JT
1881DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1882DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1883NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1884National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1885Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1886Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1887
cd9bfe15 1888* New targets.
e33ce519 1889
456f8b9d
DB
1890Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1891
e33ce519 1892
da8ca43d
JT
1893* New native configurations
1894
1895Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1896SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1897MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1898UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1899
cd9bfe15
AC
1900* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1901
1902Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1903been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1904configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1905permanently REMOVED.
1906
92eb23c5 1907Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1908OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1909IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1910Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1911Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1912Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1913i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1914i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1915i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1916HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1917 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1918 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1919I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1920
db034ac5
AC
1921* OBSOLETE languages
1922
1923CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1924
cd9bfe15
AC
1925* REMOVED configurations and files
1926
1927AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1928A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1929AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1930AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1931AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1932
1933testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1934
20f01a46
DH
1935* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1936
1937This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1938commands. The default is 1024.
1939
a5941fbf
MK
1940* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1941
1942Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1943
89743e04
MS
1944* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1945
1946These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1947to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1948from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1949
9fb14e79
JB
1950* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1951
1952The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1953including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1954of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1955
2037aebb
AC
1956*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1957
1958* New targets.
1959
1960Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1961
1962* Bug fixes
1963
1964gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1965mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1966Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1967
1968gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1969dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1970Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1971
1972Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1973Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1974By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1975
1976i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1977avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1978By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1979
37057839 1980*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1981
1a703748
MS
1982* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1983
1984This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1985really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1986In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1987target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1988This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1989(notably embedded) targets.
1990
cefd4ef5
MS
1991* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1992
55241689
AC
1993This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1994process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1995GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1996hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1997
352ed7b4
MS
1998* New command line option
1999
2000GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2001
2002* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2003
2004There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2005command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2006a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2007be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2008open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2009issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2010a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2011it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2012GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2013is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2014
fe419ffc
RE
2015* Changes in ARM configurations.
2016
2017Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2018configuration is fully multi-arch.
2019
eb7cedd9
MK
2020* New native configurations
2021
fe419ffc 2022ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2023x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2024AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2025Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2026
c9f63e6b
CV
2027* New targets
2028
2029Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2030
9b4ff276
AC
2031* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2032
2033Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2034been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2035configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2036permanently REMOVED.
2037
2038AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2039A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2040AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2041AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2042AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2043
b4ceaee6 2044testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2045
e2caac18
AC
2046* REMOVED configurations and files
2047
2048TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2049WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2050PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2051PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2052PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2053Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2054Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2055 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2056SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2057Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2058Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2059ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2060Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2061
c2a727fa
TT
2062* Changes to command line processing
2063
2064The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2065for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2066
467d8519
TT
2067* Changes to key bindings
2068
2069There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2070
7072a954
AC
2071*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2072
2073Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2074
2075Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2076corrupted.
2077
2078Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2079
2080Numerous documentation fixes.
2081
2082Numerous testsuite fixes.
2083
34f47bc4 2084*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2085
2086* New native configurations
2087
2088Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2089x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2090MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2091MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2092ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2093s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2094
bf64bfd6
AC
2095* New targets
2096
def90278 2097Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2098CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2099UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2100
17e78a56 2101* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2102
2103x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2104Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2105Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2106 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2107TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2108WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2109Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2110PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2111PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2112PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2113SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2114Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2115ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2116Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2117
17e78a56
AC
2118stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2119kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2120
7fcca85b
AC
2121Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2122been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2123configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2124permanently REMOVED.
2125
a196c81c 2126* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2127
2128Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2129Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2130Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2131ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2132Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2133ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2134
6d6b80e5 2135* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2136
6d6b80e5 2137GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2138sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2139present.
2140
bf64bfd6
AC
2141* Other news:
2142
e23194cb
EZ
2143* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2144
2145* The MI enabled by default.
2146
2147The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2148revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2149engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2150using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2151which is now deprecated.
2152
2153* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2154
2155GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2156main features are supported:
2157
2158 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2159
2160 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2161 extension;
2162
2163 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2164
2165 - a Pascal expression parser.
2166
2167However, some important features are not yet supported.
2168
2169 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2170
2171 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2172
2173 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2174 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2175
2176 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2177
2178 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2179
2180* Changes in completion.
2181
2182Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2183to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2184users expect at the shell prompt.
2185
2186Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2187`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2188program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2189files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2190be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2191considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2192name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2193
2194`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2195
2196* New platform-independent commands:
2197
2198It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2199hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2200documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2201
2202* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2203
d7275149
MK
2204Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2205revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2206many threads as your system allows you to have.
2207
e23194cb
EZ
2208Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2209
d7275149
MK
2210Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2211multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2212
2213* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2214
2215Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2216
e23194cb
EZ
2217GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2218debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2219supported.)
2220
2221* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2222
2223Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2224breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2225implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2226put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2227and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2228registers.
2229
2230The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2231debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2232watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2233
2234* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2235
2236New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2237the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2238
2239New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2240display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2241IDT.
2242
2243New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2244from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2245New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2246a given linear address.
2247
2248GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2249program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2250which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2251
2252DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2253
6c56c069
EZ
2254It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2255
e23194cb
EZ
2256* Changes in documentation.
2257
2258All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2259Documentation License.
2260
2261Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2262manual.
2263
2264TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2265
2266Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2267manual.
2268
2269The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2270documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2271hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2272
5d6640b1
AC
2273* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2274
2275The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2276``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2277contents of this file.
2278
1a1d8446
AC
2279* gdba.el deleted
2280
2281GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2282
9debab2f 2283*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2284
c63ce875
EZ
2285* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2286
2287Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2288programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2289displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2290greater level of detail.
2291
2292* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2293
2294It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2295bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2296on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2297written.
2298
2299* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2300
2301The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2302necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2303machines ``out of the box''.
2304
2305The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2306possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2307signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2308would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2309interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2310
2311It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2312standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2313even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2314and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2315terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2316
2317The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2318enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2319also works.
2320
2321DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2322GDB.
2323
2324It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2325directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2326times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2327breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2328
ed9a39eb
JM
2329* New native configurations
2330
2331ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2332PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2333
7a292a7a
SS
2334* New targets
2335
96baa820 2336Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2337x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2338PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2339TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2340
085dd6e6
JM
2341* OBSOLETE configurations
2342
2343Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2344Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2345Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2346ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2347Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2348
9debab2f
AC
2349Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2350but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2351these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2352be permanently REMOVED.
2353
5330533d
SS
2354* Gould support removed
2355
2356Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2357
bc9e5bbf
AC
2358* New features for SVR4
2359
2360On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2361without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2362load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2363
2364* Many C++ enhancements
2365
2366C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2367in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2368
adf40b2e
JM
2369* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2370
2371A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2372sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2373with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2374``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2375
2376 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2377 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2378
43e526b9
JM
2379* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2380
2381A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2382expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2383instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2384
2385The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2386added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2387
96baa820
JM
2388* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2389
2390The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2391``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2392include ``set remote P-packet''.
2393
11cf8741
JM
2394* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2395
2396The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2397accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2398``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2399
7876dd43
DB
2400* ``apropos'' command added.
2401
2402The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2403documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2404try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2405
bc9e5bbf
AC
2406* New MI interface
2407
2408A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2409interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2410process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2411"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2412enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2413
2414 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2415
c906108c
SS
2416*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2417
2418* New native configurations
2419
2420HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2421HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2422M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2423
2424* New targets
2425
2426Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2427Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2428Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2429
2430* OBSOLETE configurations
2431
2432Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2433
2434Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2435but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2436these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2437be permanently REMOVED.
2438
2439* ANSI/ISO C
2440
2441As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2442buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2443containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2444use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2445available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2446configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2447information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2448already.
2449
2450* Readline 2.2
2451
2452GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2453
2454* set extension-language
2455
2456You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2457languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2458you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2459 set extension-language .c c++
2460The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2461and their associated languages.
2462
2463* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2464
2465When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2466you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2467PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2468
2469 set processor NAME
2470
2471sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2472following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2473
2474 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2475 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2476 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2477 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2478 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2479 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2480 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2481 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2482 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2483 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2484 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2485
2486At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2487special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2488registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2489only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2490
2491* HP-UX support
2492
2493Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2494more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2495library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2496support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2497for xdb and dbx commands.
2498
2499* Catchpoints
2500
2501HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2502generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2503to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2504
2505This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2506argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2507output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2508
2509* Debugging across forks
2510
2511On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2512in the inferior.
2513
2514* TUI
2515
2516HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2517it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2518configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2519
2520* GDB remote protocol additions
2521
2522A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2523Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2524fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2525allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2526
2527For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2528full 64-bit address. The command
2529
2530 set remoteaddresssize 32
2531
2532can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2533the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2534will be discarded.
2535
2536In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2537command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2538
2539 maint packet heythere
2540
2541sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2542disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2543time.
2544
2545The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2546target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2547downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2548
2549* Tracing can collect general expressions
2550
2551You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2552further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2553doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2554
2555* mask-address variable for Mips
2556
2557For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2558a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2559of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2560
2561* Higher serial baud rates
2562
2563GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2564230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2565to achieve all of these rates.)
2566
2567* i960 simulator
2568
2569The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2570builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2571
2572
2573*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2574
2575* New native configurations
2576
2577Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2578Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2579Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2580PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2581PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2582Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2583Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2584
2585* New targets
2586
2587Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2588Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2589Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2590Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2591MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2592MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2593MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2594Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2595Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2596Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2597NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2598
2599* New debugging protocols
2600
2601ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2602M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2603DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2604PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2605PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2606Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2607
2608* DWARF 2
2609
2610All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2611format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2612information.
2613
2614* Java frontend
2615
2616GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2617only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2618
2619* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2620
2621For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2622loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2623locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2624
2625* Live range splitting
2626
2627GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2628range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2629more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2630
2631* Hurd support
2632
2633GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2634updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2635
2636* ARM Thumb support
2637
2638GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2639instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2640instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2641accordingly.
2642
2643* MIPS16 support
2644
2645GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2646instruction set.
2647
2648* Overlay support
2649
2650GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2651linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2652will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2653control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2654additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2655in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2656
2657* info symbol
2658
2659The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2660the symbol at the specified address.
2661
2662* Trace support
2663
2664The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2665asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2666extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2667includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2668file tracepoint.c for more details.
2669
2670* MIPS simulator
2671
2672Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2673by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2674of most MIPS variants.
2675
2676* Sparc simulator
2677
2678Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2679by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2680Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2681
2682* set architecture
2683
2684For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2685basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2686architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2687the possible architectures.
2688
2689*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2690
2691* New native configurations
2692
2693Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2694M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2695PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2696PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2697PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2698RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2699
2700* New targets
2701
2702ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2703I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2704MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2705MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2706PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2707Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2708Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2709
2710* PowerPC simulator
2711
2712The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2713contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2714PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2715basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2716performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2717
2718* Solaris 2.5
2719
2720GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2721
2722* Windows 95/NT native
2723
2724GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2725To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2726which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2727Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2728ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2729
2730* dont-repeat command
2731
2732If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2733command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2734useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2735extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2736
2737* Send break instead of ^C
2738
2739The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2740rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2741GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2742
2743* Remote protocol timeout
2744
2745The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2746that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2747to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2748
2749* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2750
2751By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2752loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2753stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2754when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2755in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2756
2757Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2758/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2759automatically on hpux10.
2760
2761* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2762
2763Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2764
2765* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2766
2767When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2768may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2769the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2770every character. The default value is 1050.
2771
2772* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2773
2774If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2775a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2776replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2777details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2778remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2779to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2780
2781* Speedups for remote debugging
2782
2783GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2784the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2785and more efficient S-record downloading.
2786
2787* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2788
2789GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2790Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2791
2792*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2793
2794* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2795
2796The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2797can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2798
2799* Remote targets use caching
2800
2801Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2802remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2803it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2804debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2805off' turns the the data cache off.
2806
2807* Remote targets may have threads
2808
2809The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2810in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2811gdb/remote.c for details.
2812
2813* NetROM support
2814
2815If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2816support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2817acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2818write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2819support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2820another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2821sequence is something like
2822
2823 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2824 load <prog>
2825 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2826
2827* Macintosh host
2828
2829GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2830may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2831it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2832available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2833device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2834directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2835scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2836mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2837
2838* Autoconf
2839
2840GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2841but does simplify configuration and building.
2842
2843* hpux10
2844
2845GDB now supports hpux10.
2846
2847*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2848
2849* New native configurations
2850
2851x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2852x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2853NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2854Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2855
2856* New targets
2857
2858A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2859HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2860CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2861PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2862WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2863
2864* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2865
2866GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2867possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2868filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2869the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2870if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2871
2872* Arguments to user-defined commands
2873
2874User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2875Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2876trivial example:
2877define adder
2878 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2879
2880To execute the command use:
2881adder 1 2 3
2882
2883Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2884Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2885use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2886
2887* New `if' and `while' commands
2888
2889This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2890commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2891expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2892execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2893terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2894`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2895if the expression is zero.
2896
2897* Fortran source language mode
2898
2899GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2900Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2901variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2902with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2903Fortran compilers.
2904
2905* Better HPUX support
2906
2907Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2908running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2909processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2910for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2911that behavior do the following before running the program:
2912
2913 adb -w a.out
2914 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2915 control-d
2916
2917This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2918To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2919
2920 adb -w a.out
2921 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2922 control-d
2923
2924You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2925the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2926external linkage.
2927
2928GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2929HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2930
2931* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2932
2933You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2934commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2935current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2936"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2937associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2938configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2939
2940* New DOS host serial code
2941
2942This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2943no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2944a PC's serial port.
2945
2946*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2947
2948* New "complete" command
2949
2950This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2951were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2952
2953* Trailing space optional in prompt
2954
2955"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2956allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2957
2958* Breakpoint hit counts
2959
2960"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2961has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2962can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2963to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2964less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2965that breakpoint.
2966
2967* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2968
2969"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2970an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2971arrays actually contain only short strings.
2972
2973* Shared library breakpoints
2974
2975In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2976breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2977
2978* Hardware watchpoints
2979
2980There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2981targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2982
55241689 2983Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2984
2985* Annotations
2986
2987Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2988and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2989
2990* Improved Irix 5 support
2991
2992GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2993
2994* Improved HPPA support
2995
2996GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2997
2998* New native configurations
2999
3000Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3001HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3002Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3003RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3004
3005* New targets
3006
3007OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3008MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3009Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3010
3011* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3012
3013There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3014This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3015
3016* Fixes
3017
3018As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3019and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3020
3021*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3022
3023* Irix 5 is now supported
3024
3025* HPPA support
3026
3027GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3028to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3029GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3030of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3031can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3032
3033
3034*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3035
3036* User visible changes:
3037
3038* Remote Debugging
3039
3040The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3041target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3042debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3043integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3044debugging info for the mips target).
3045
3046* DEC Alpha native support
3047
3048GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3049debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3050work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3051Alpha-specific notes.
3052
3053* Preliminary thread implementation
3054
3055GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3056
3057* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3058
3059This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3060to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3061for details).
3062
3063* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3064
3065This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3066mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3067call methods, ...etc.
3068
3069*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3070
3071 * User visible changes:
3072
3073Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3074supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3075other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3076somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3077
3078Filename completion now works.
3079
3080When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3081arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3082addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3083
3084All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3085vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3086should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3087your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3088to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3089
3090 * DEC alpha support
3091
3092This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3093cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3094
3095
3096*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3097
3098 * Testsuite
3099
3100This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3101The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3102via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3103
3104 * C++ demangling
3105
3106'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3107emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3108Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3109disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3110use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3111
3112 * Simulators
3113
3114GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3115So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3116Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3117
3118 * New targets supported
3119
3120H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3121H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3122SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3123Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3124IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3125
3126Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3127version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3128GO32 memory extender.
3129
3130 * New remote protocols
3131
3132MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3133
3134 * New source languages supported
3135
3136This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3137used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3138into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3139
3140
3141*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3142
3143 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3144
3145GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3146version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3147University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3148compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3149format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3150(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3151
3152Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3153
3154 * Faster and better demangling
3155
3156We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3157demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3158character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3159only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3160This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3161increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3162symbol lookups.
3163
3164`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3165from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3166compiler does not actually implement.
3167
3168 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3169
3170In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3171inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3172recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3173very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3174The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3175circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3176fix.
3177
3178The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3179release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3180
3181 * Improved configure script
3182
3183The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3184you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3185host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3186done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3187
3188We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3189version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3190`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3191The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3192only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3193We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3194
3195 * Documentation improvements
3196
3197There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3198produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3199before submitting changes.
3200
3201The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3202M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3203`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3204you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3205a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3206
3207*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3208We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3209been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3210or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3211`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3212around this problem.
3213
3214 * New features
3215
3216GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3217the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3218`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3219the target program.
3220
3221The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3222how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3223
3224 * New native hosts supported
3225
3226HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3227386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3228
3229 * New targets supported
3230
3231AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3232
3233 * New file formats supported
3234
3235BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3236HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3237
3238 * Major bug fixes
3239
3240Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3241
3242We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3243printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3244
3245We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3246for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3247release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3248
3249You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3250will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3251
3252We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3253for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3254especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3255libraries.
3256
3257The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3258information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3259command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3260any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3261when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3262
3263 * Internal improvements
3264
3265GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3266debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3267
3268GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3269Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3270symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3271contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3272shared code that handles any of them.
3273
3274 * New command line options
3275
3276We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3277
3278 * Mmalloc licensing
3279
3280The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3281General Public License.
3282
3283*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3284
3285 * Host/native/target split
3286
3287GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3288hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3289target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3290local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3291ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3292
3293The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3294GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3295is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3296code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3297any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3298built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3299handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3300
3301GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3302It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3303plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3304
3305 * New hosts supported
3306
3307HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3308386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3309386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3310
3311 * New targets supported
3312
3313Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
331468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3315
3316 * New native hosts supported
3317
3318386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3319 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3320386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3321
3322 * New file formats supported
3323
3324BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3325supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3326format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3327
3328 * New commands
3329
3330`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3331`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3332These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3333
3334`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3335
3336You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3337scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3338prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3339executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3340
3341 * C++ improvements
3342
3343We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3344info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3345symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3346
3347Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3348
3349 * Major bug fixes
3350
3351The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3352fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3353by the compiler.
3354
3355We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3356support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3357
3358John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3359slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3360that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3361purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3362the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3363mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3364
3365Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3366about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3367completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3368we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3369
3370 * AMD 29k support
3371
3372A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3373specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3374calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3375usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3376in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3377
3378We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3379Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3380of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3381resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3382
3383 * Remote interfaces
3384
3385We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3386with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3387message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3388This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3389needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3390breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3391each instruction being stepped through.
3392
3393The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3394registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3395
3396There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3397find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3398Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3399processor with a serial port.
3400
3401 * Configuration
3402
3403Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3404`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3405supported, and what files each one uses.
3406
3407 * Library changes
3408
3409There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3410disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3411Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3412disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3413
3414The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3415Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3416can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3417grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3418
3419 * Documentation
3420
3421The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3422reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3423as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3424encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3425system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3426bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3427
3428And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3429
3430
3431*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3432
3433 * Better support for C++ function names
3434
3435GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3436names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3437(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3438single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3439Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3440
3441GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3442the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3443You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3444lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3445for the list of formats.
3446
3447 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3448
3449Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3450C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3451directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3452can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3453usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3454about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3455this problem.)
3456
3457 * New 'maintenance' command
3458
3459All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3460the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3461can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3462
3463 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3464 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3465 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3466 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3467 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3468 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3469
3470The following commands are new:
3471
3472 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3473 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3474 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3475
3476 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3477
3478We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3479(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3480be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3481read after argv processing.
3482
3483 * New hosts supported
3484
3485Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3486
55241689 3487GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3488
3489We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3490is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3491for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3492masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3493fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3494It costs extra.
3495
3496 * New targets supported
3497
3498Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3499
3500 * More smarts about finding #include files
3501
3502GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3503all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3504greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3505especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3506the one that contains your sources.
3507
3508We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3509breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3510try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3511
3512 * Interesting infernals change
3513
3514GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3515section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3516target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3517stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3518
3519 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3520
3521There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3522 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3523 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3524
3525See the ChangeLog for details.
3526
3527*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3528
3529 * New machines supported (host and target)
3530
3531IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3532
3533SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3534
3535 * New malloc package
3536
3537GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3538Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3539capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3540This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3541pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3542more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3543
3544 * info proc
3545
3546The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3547'help info proc' for details.
3548
3549 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3550
3551The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3552Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3553possible.
3554
3555 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3556
3557Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3558support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3559conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3560environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3561that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3562in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3563
3564 * Cross byte order fixes
3565
3566Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3567targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3568
3569 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3570
3571If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3572system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3573`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3574program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3575called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3576Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3577and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3578the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3579option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3580starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3581
3582You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3583the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3584information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3585slower, but makes future operations faster.
3586
3587The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3588build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3589A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3590use is:
3591
3592 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3593
3594The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3595It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3596shared across multiple host platforms.
3597
3598 * longjmp() handling
3599
3600GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3601siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3602all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3603platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3604
3605 * Solaris 2.0
3606
3607Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3608this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3609reading symbols.
3610
3611 * Bug fixes
3612
3613As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3614People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3615crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3616
3617*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3618
3619 * New machines supported (host and target)
3620
3621SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3622 (except core files)
3623BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3624Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3625
3626 * New machines supported (target)
3627
3628AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3629
3630 * C++ support
3631
3632GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3633The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3634per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3635
3636GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3637`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3638extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3639good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3640will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3641released.
3642
3643 * New features for SVR4
3644
3645GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3646shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3647only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3648
3649The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3650on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3651it prints the address mappings of the process.
3652
3653If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3654bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3655
3656 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3657
3658Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3659now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3660skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3661make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3662same code linked statically.
3663
3664 * New Getopt
3665
3666GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3667version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3668continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3669Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3670added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3671future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3672
3673 * Bugs fixed
3674
3675The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3676Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3677See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3678
3679
3680*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3681
3682 * New machines supported (host and target)
3683
3684Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3685NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3686Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3687
3688 * Almost SCO Unix support
3689
3690We had hoped to support:
3691SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3692(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3693that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3694about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3695
3696 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3697
3698GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3699debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3700is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3701send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3702reqired (if any).
3703
3704 * New Readline
3705
3706GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3707is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3708required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3709
3710 * Bugs fixed
3711
3712The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3713Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3714See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3715
3716 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3717
3718GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3719supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3720symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3721
3722Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3723mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3724debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3725mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3726version 2.
3727
3728Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3729really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3730line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3731variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3732situation somewhat.
3733
3734When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3735However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3736methods.
3737
3738We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3739DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3740encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3741
3742
3743*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3744
3745 * Improved configuration
3746
3747Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3748Porting BFD is simpler.
3749
3750 * Stepping improved
3751
3752The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3753of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3754in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3755function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3756
3757 * Bug fixing
3758
3759Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3760
3761 * New host supported (not target)
3762
3763Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3764
3765
3766*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3767
3768 * Multiple source language support
3769
3770GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3771It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3772and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3773language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3774You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3775`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3776
3777 * GDB and Modula-2
3778
3779GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3780currently under development at the State University of New York at
3781Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3782continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3783
3784Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3785debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3786symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3787
3788There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3789in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3790
3791 * set write on/off
3792
3793GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3794a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3795the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3796by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3797effect immediately.
3798
3799 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3800
3801When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3802shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3803The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3804examining core files.
3805
3806 * set listsize
3807
3808You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3809The default is 10.
3810
3811 * New machines supported (host and target)
3812
3813SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3814Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3815Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3816
3817 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3818
3819IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3820
3821 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3822
3823AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3824AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3825Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3826
3827 * New remote interfaces
3828
3829AMD 29000 Adapt
3830AMD 29000 Minimon
3831
3832
3833*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3834
3835 * New Facilities
3836
3837Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3838
3839Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3840target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3841is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3842remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3843remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3844also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3845using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3846stub on the target system.
3847
3848New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3849
3850GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3851library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3852object file types such as a.out and coff.
3853
3854There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3855refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3856
3857
3858 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3859
3860All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3861by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3862
3863For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3864``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3865Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3866
3867What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3868print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3869will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3870all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3871
3872confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3873 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3874 it is already running. Default is ON.
3875
3876editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3877 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3878 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3879 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3880 Default is ON.
3881
3882history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3883 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3884 or the value of the environment variable
3885 GDBHISTFILE.
3886
3887history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3888 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3889 HISTSIZE.
3890
3891history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3892 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3893 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3894
3895history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3896 history expansion will be performed on
3897 command line input. The default is OFF.
3898
3899radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3900 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3901 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3902
3903height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3904 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3905 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3906 variable TERM.
3907
3908width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3909 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3910 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3911 variable TERM.
3912
3913Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3914``set width'' instead.
3915
3916print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3917 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3918 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3919 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3920
3921print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3922 is OFF.
3923
3924print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3925 "raw" form if off.
3926
3927print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3928 like instructions.
3929
3930print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3931
3932
3933 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3934
3935The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3936new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3937are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3938window.
3939
3940
3941 * Support for Shared Libraries
3942
3943GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3944Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3945before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3946happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3947At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3948from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3949shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3950It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3951
3952sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3953 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3954 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3955
3956info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3957
3958
3959 * Watchpoints
3960
3961A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3962expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3963tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3964quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3965problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3966more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3967
3968watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3969
3970info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3971
3972delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3973disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3974enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3975
3976
3977 * C++ multiple inheritance
3978
3979When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3980for C++ programs.
3981
3982 * C++ exception handling
3983
3984Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3985ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3986the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3987handler's context).
3988
3989catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3990 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3991 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3992
3993info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3994 current stack frame.
3995
3996
3997 * Minor command changes
3998
3999The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4000command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4001is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4002
4003The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4004at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4005frames without printing.
4006
4007 * New directory command
4008
4009'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4010The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4011about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4012with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4013find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4014
4015 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4016
4017For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4018for more details.
4019
4020GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4021two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4022Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4023where the program that you are debugging will run.