]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
2012-01-16 Sergio Durigan Junior <sergiodj@redhat.com>
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
8d5b6c2b 4*** Changes since GDB 7.4
d6e00af6 5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
9
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10* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
11 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
12
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13* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
14 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
15
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16*** Changes in GDB 7.4
17
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18* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
19 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
20 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
21 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
22 inferior changes.
23
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24* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
25 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
26
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27* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
28 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
29 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
30 target hardware watchpoint.
31
32 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
33 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
34 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
35 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
36
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37* Python scripting
38
32d1c362 39 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 40 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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41 existing one.
42
3a7bf607 43 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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44 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
45 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
46 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
47 now "message", which just prints the error message without
48 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 49
baacfb07 50 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 51 Python API.
713389e0 52
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53 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
54 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 55 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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56 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
57 corresponding value.
58
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59 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
60 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
61 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
62 on GDB start-up.
63
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64 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
65 static_block will return the global and static blocks
66 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
67 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
68
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69 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
70
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71 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
72 "gdb.breakpoints".
73
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74 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
75 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
76 available in the CLI.
77
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78 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
79 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
80 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
81 "some_type.items()".
82
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83 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
84 new object file.
85
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86 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
87 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
88 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
89 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
90 any anonymous fields.
91
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92* MI changes
93
94 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
95 "solib-event".
96
97 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
98 "=breakpoint-modified".
99
100 ** New command -ada-task-info.
101
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102* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
103 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
104 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
105 lives.
106
107 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
108 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
109 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
110 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
111 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
112
113 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
114 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
115
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116* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
117 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
118 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
119 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
120 use this option to specify where to find it.
121
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122* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
123 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
124 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
125 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
126 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
127 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
128 section in the user manual for more details.
129
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130* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
131 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
132 become available after that.
133
71eba9c2 134* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 135
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136* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
137 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
138 gcc version 4.7.
139
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140* New commands
141
142!SHELL COMMAND
143 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
144 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
145
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146* Changed commands
147
148watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
149 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
150 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
151
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152info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
153 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
154 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
155
71eba9c2 156info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
157 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
158 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
159 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
160 name starts with a hyphen.
161
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162collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
163 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
164 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
165 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
166 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
167 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
168 number of bytes that will be collected.
169
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170tstart [NOTES]
171 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
172 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
173 setting the variable trace-notes.
174
175tstop [NOTES]
176 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
177 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
178 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
179 trace-stop-notes.
180
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181* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
182 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
183 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
184 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
185 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
186 is running.
187
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188* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
189 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
190 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
191
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192* New options
193
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194set extended-prompt
195show extended-prompt
196 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
197 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
198 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
199 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
200 prompt is displayed.
201
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202set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
203show print entry-values
204 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
205 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
206 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
207
208set debug entry-values
209show debug entry-values
210 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
211 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
212
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213set basenames-may-differ
214show basenames-may-differ
215 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
216 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
217 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
218 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
219 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
220 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
221 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
222 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
223
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224set trace-user
225show trace-user
226set trace-notes
227show trace-notes
228 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
229 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
230 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
231 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
232
233set trace-stop-notes
234show trace-stop-notes
235 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
236 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
237 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
238 started by someone else.
239
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240* New remote packets
241
242QTEnable
243
244 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
245
246QTDisable
247
248 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
249
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250QTNotes
251
252 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
253
254qTP
255
256 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
257
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258qTMinFTPILen
259
260 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
261 be placed.
262
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263* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
264 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
265
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266* New targets
267
268Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
269
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270* New Simulators
271
272Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
273
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274*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
275
276* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
277
d6e00af6 278*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 279
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280* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
281 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
282 matches the given regular expression.
283
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284* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
285
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286* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
287 dumping the instruction opcodes.
288
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289* New command line options
290
291-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
292 This is mostly for testing purposes.
293
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294* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
295 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
296
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297* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
298 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
299 source path list instead of augmenting it.
300
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301* GDB now understands thread names.
302
303 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
304 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
305
306 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
307 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
308
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309* OpenCL C
310 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
311 has been integrated into GDB.
312
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313* Python scripting
314
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315 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
316 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
317 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
318
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319 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
320 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
321 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
322 and allows for more dynamic content.
323
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324 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
325 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
326 have an is_valid method.
327
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328 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
329 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
330 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
331
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332 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
333
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334 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
335 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
336 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
337 that function like so:
338
339 result = some_value (10,20)
340
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341 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
342 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
343 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
344
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345 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
346 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
347 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
348 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
349 New function: register_pretty_printer.
350
351 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
352 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
353
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354 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
355
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356 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
357 selected thread.
358
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359 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
360 holds the thread's name.
361
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362 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
363 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 364 occurring in the process being debugged.
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365 The following events are currently supported:
366 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
367 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
368 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
369
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370* C++ Improvements:
371
372 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
373 instantiation. For example, if you have:
374
375 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
376
377 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
378 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
379 was added to GCC 4.5.
380
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381 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
382 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
383 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
384 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
385 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
386 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
387
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388* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
389 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
390 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
391 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
392 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
393
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394* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
395 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
396 execution to a label.
397
398* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
399 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
400 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
401 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
402
b56df873 403* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 404 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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405 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
406 of scope.
407
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408* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
409
410 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
411 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
412 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
413 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
414 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
415 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
416
417 (gdb) info threads
418 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
419
420 While now you see this:
421
422 (gdb) info threads
423 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
424
425 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
426 dumps.
427
428 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
429 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
430 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
431 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
432
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433* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
434 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
435 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
436 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
437 section in the user manual for more details.
438
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439* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
440
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441 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
442 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 443
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444 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
445
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446* New native configurations
447
448ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
449
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450* New targets:
451
452Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
453
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454* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
455 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
456 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
457 in the GDB user manual.
458
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459* Guile support was removed.
460
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461* New features in the GNU simulator
462
463 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
464
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465 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
466
76b8507d 467*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 468
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469* Shared library support for remote targets by default
470
471 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
472 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
473 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
474 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
475 was always disabled for such configurations.
476
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477* C++ Improvements:
478
479 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
480
481 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
482 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
483 For example:
484 namespace A
485 {
486 class B { };
487 void foo (B) { }
488 }
489 ...
490 A::B b
491 foo(b)
492 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
493 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
494 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
495
496 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
497
498 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
499 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
500 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
501 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
502 entry.
503 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
504 mentioned flavors of operators.
505
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506 ** static const class members
507
508 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
509 class definition has been fixed.
510
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511* Windows Thread Information Block access.
512
513 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
514 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
515 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
516 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
517 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
518 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
519
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520* Static tracepoints
521
522 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
523 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
524 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
525 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
526 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
527 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
528 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
529 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
530 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
531 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
532 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
533 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
534 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
535 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
536 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
537 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
538 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
539 the "New remote packets" section below.
540
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541* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
542
543 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
544 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
545 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
546 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
547
548* Observer mode
549
550 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
551 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
552 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
553 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
554 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
555 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
556 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
557
558* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
559 current thread.
560
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561* New remote packets
562
563qGetTIBAddr
564
565 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
566
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567qRelocInsn
568
569 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
570 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
571 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
572 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
573 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
574 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
575
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576qTfSTM, qTsSTM
577
578 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
579
580qTSTMat
581
582 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
583 program.
584
585qXfer:statictrace:read
586
587 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
588 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
589 to gdb's qSupported query.
590
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591QAllow
592
593 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
594
595QTDPsrc
596
597 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
598 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
599
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600* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
601 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
602 a directory.
603
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604* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
605
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606 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
607 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
608 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
609 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
610
611 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
612 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
613 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
614 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
615 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
616 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
617 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
618
619 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
620 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 621
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622 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
623
c8d5aac9
L
624* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
625 it understands register description.
626
7c953934
TT
627* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
628
8685c86f
L
629* X86 general purpose registers
630
631 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
632 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
633 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
634 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
635 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
636
95a42b64 637* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
638 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
639 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
640 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
641 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
642 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 643
8bd10a10
CM
644* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
645 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
646 in the specified file.
647
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648* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
649 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
650 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
651 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
652 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
653 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
654 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
655 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
656 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
657 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
658
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659* New commands
660
f1421989
HZ
661eval template, expressions...
662 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
663 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
664
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PA
665set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
666show target-file-system-kind
667 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
668 names.
669
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PA
670save breakpoints <filename>
671 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
672 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
673 definitions, use the `source' command.
674
675`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
676is now deprecated.
677
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PA
678info static-tracepoint-markers
679 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
680
681strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
682 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
683 function, line, address, or marker ID.
684
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SS
685set observer on|off
686show observer
687 Enable and disable observer mode.
688
689set may-write-registers on|off
690set may-write-memory on|off
691set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
692set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
693set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
694set may-interrupt on|off
695 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
696 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
697 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
698 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
699 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
700 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
701 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
702
703set record memory-query on|off
704show record memory-query
705 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
706 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
707
53a71c06
CR
708* Changed commands
709
710disassemble
711 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
712
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713* Python scripting
714
9279c692
JB
715** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
716 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
717 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
718 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
719 GDB using Python' in the manual.
720
adc36818 721** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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PM
722 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
723 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
724 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 725
fa33c3cd 726** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
727 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
728
729** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
730
731** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 732
967cf477
DE
733** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
734
8a1ea21f
DE
735** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
736 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
737 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
738
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VP
739* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
740there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
741tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
742regular breakpoints.
743
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PA
744* New targets
745
746ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
747
6aecb9c2
JB
748* D language support.
749 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
750 language.
751
431e49aa
TJB
752* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
753 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
754 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
755 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
756 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
757
758* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
759 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
760 conditions of the form:
761
762 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
763
764 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
765 interface mentioned above.
766
bfbf3774 767*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 768
4eef138c
TT
769* C++ Improvements
770
771 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
772
773 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
774 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
775 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
776 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
777 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
778
4eef138c
TT
779 ** Bug Fixes
780
781 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
782 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
783 qualified name.
784
785 ** Cast Operators
786
787 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
788 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
789
2d1c1221
ME
790* New targets
791
792Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 793Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
794
795* New Simulators
796
797Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 798Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 799
6c95b8df
PA
800* Multi-program debugging.
801
802 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
803 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
804 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
805 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
806 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
807 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
808 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
809 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
810
d5551862
SS
811* New tracing features
812
813 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
814
815 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
816
817 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
818 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
819 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
820 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
821 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
822 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
823 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
824 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
825 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
826 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 827
d5551862 828 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
829
830 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
831 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
832 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
833 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
834 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
835 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
836 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
837 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
838 the regular trace command.
839
d5551862
SS
840 ** Disconnected tracing
841
842 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
843 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
844 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
845 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
846 connection is lost unexpectedly.
847
00bf0b85
SS
848 ** Trace files
849
850 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
851 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
852 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
853 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
854 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
855 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
856 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
857
858 ** Circular trace buffer
859
860 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
861 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
862 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
863 not be available for all target agents.
864
21a0512e
PP
865* Changed commands
866
867disassemble
868 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
869 the arguments to be comma-separated.
870
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DJ
871info variables
872 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
873 which only declare a variable are not shown.
874
fb2e7cb4
JB
875source
876 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
877 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
878 support.
879
880 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
881 "set script-extension" (see below).
882
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PA
883* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
884
399cd161
MS
885record save [<FILENAME>]
886 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
887 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
888
889record restore <FILENAME>
890 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
891 earlier time, for replay debugging.
892
6c95b8df
PA
893add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
894 Add a new inferior.
895
896clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
897 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
898 inferior has loaded.
899
900remove-inferior ID
901 Remove an inferior.
902
903maint info program-spaces
904 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
905
9a7071a8
JB
906set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
907show remote interrupt-sequence
908 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
909 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
910 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
911 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
912 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
913
914set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
915show remote interrupt-on-connect
916 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
917 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
918 Linux kernel.
919
920set remotebreak [on | off]
921show remotebreak
922Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
923
f61e138d
SS
924tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
925 Create or modify a trace state variable.
926
927info tvariables
928 List trace state variables and their values.
929
930delete tvariable $NAME ...
931 Delete one or more trace state variables.
932
6da95a67
SS
933teval EXPR, ...
934 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
935 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
936
7a697b8d
SS
937ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
938 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
939
b0f02ee9
JK
940* New expression syntax
941
942 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
943 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
944
6c95b8df
PA
945* New options
946
947set follow-exec-mode new|same
948show follow-exec-mode
949 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
950 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
951 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
952
236f1d4d
SS
953set default-collect EXPR, ...
954show default-collect
955 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
956 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
957 such as registers or a critical global variable.
958
d5551862
SS
959set disconnected-tracing
960show disconnected-tracing
961 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
962 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
963 upon disconnection.
964
4daf5ac0
SS
965set circular-trace-buffer
966show circular-trace-buffer
967 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
968 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
969 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
970 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
971
fb2e7cb4
JB
972set script-extension off|soft|strict
973show script-extension
974 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
975 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
976 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
977 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
978 evaluation failed.
979 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
980
2b71fc8e
JB
981set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
982show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
983 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
984 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
985 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
986 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
987 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
988 is on.
989
de2e5182
TT
990* Python API Improvements
991
992 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
993 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
994 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
995
996 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
997 `is_base_class' attribute.
998
999 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1000
1001 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1002 evaluate an expression.
1003
f61e138d
SS
1004* New remote packets
1005
1006QTDV
1007 Define a trace state variable.
1008
1009qTV
1010 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1011
d5551862
SS
1012QTDisconnected
1013 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1014
4daf5ac0
SS
1015QTBuffer:circular
1016 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1017
d5551862
SS
1018qTfP, qTsP
1019 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1020
2d483d34
MS
1021* Bug fixes
1022
1023Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1024
6e0e5977
JB
1025Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1026much more reliable. In particular:
1027 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1028 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1029 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1030 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1031 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1032 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1033 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1034 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1035 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1036 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1037 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1038 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1039 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1040 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1041 non-threaded programs.
1042
93c26624
JK
1043PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1044This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1045libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1046executable program.
1047
abc7453d 1048*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1049
4efc6507
DE
1050* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1051dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1052them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1053for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1054"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1055
782b2b07
SS
1056* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1057breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1058or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1059the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1060for tracepoint actions.
1061
53a71c06
CR
1062* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1063raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1064modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1065
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1066* Process record and replay
1067
1068 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1069 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1070 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1071 execute commands.
1072
64644d9b
MS
1073* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1074step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1075set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1076reverse execution.
1077
b9412953
DD
1078* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1079feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
10802.6.28 or later.
1081
6c7a06a3
TT
1082* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1083target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1084char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1085literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1086U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1087`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1088system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1089the installation instructions for more information.
1090
f1838a98
UW
1091* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1092remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1093with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1094the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1095
55333a84
DE
1096* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1097and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1098
7f6a6314
PM
1099* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1100now complete on file names.
1101
65d12d83
TT
1102* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1103completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1104For instance, consider:
1105
1106 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1107 # struct example variable;
1108 (gdb) p variable.
1109
1110If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1111completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1112
edb3359d
DJ
1113* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1114the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1115
2fae03e8
TT
1116* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1117operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1118macros.
1119
47a3467a 1120* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1121the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1122implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1123
1124* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1125registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1126can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1127and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1128
08388c79
DE
1129* New remote packets
1130
1131qSearch:memory:
1132 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1133
a6f3e723
SL
1134QStartNoAckMode
1135 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1136 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1137 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1138
d7713ae0
EZ
1139vKill
1140 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1141 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1142
07e059b5
VP
1143qXfer:osdata:read
1144 Obtains additional operating system information
1145
47a3467a
PA
1146qXfer:siginfo:read
1147qXfer:siginfo:write
1148 Read or write additional signal information.
1149
060871df
PA
1150* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1151
1152 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1153 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1154 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1155
c055b101 1156* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1157DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1158
1159* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1160and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1161`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1162
31fffb02
CS
1163* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1164with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1165
88d8a8e0
JB
1166* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1167
7f99b190
JB
1168* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1169
ccd213ac
DJ
1170* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1171which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1172
1fddbabb 1173* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1174list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1175
a0ef4274
DJ
1176* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1177conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1178have also been fixed.
1179
bfb8797a 1180* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1181From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1182are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1183
71c25dea
TT
1184* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1185example, given:
1186
1187 template<typename T> class C { };
1188 C<char const *> c;
1189
1190GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1191
1192 ptype C<char const *>
1193 ptype C<char const*>
1194 ptype C<const char *>
1195 ptype C<const char*>
1196
ccd213ac
DJ
1197* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1198
1199 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1200 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1201
7ae0e2a2
UW
1202 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1203 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1204 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1205
a6f3e723
SL
1206 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1207 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1208
da8bd9a3
DJ
1209 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1210 gdbserver.
1211
d70e31dd
DE
1212 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1213 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1214
1215 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1216 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1217 as appropriate.
1218
d57a3c85
TJB
1219* Python scripting
1220
1221 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1222 available is determined at configure time.
1223
d8906c6f
TJB
1224 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1225
aadc346a
JB
1226* Ada tasking support
1227
1228 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1229 been introduced:
1230
1231 info tasks
1232 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1233 info task N
1234 Print detailed information about task number N.
1235 task
1236 Print the task number of the current task.
1237 task N
1238 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1239
adb483fe
DJ
1240* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1241add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1242
2277426b
PA
1243* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1244
1245 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1246 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1247 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1248 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1249 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1250 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1251 below.
1252
08d16641
PA
1253* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1254"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1255information.
1256
e35359c5
UW
1257* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1258to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1259architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1260See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1261more information.
1262
85e747d2
UW
1263* Multi-architecture debugging.
1264
1265 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1266 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1267 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1268 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1269 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1270
1271* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1272use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1273Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1274powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1275--enable-targets configure option.
1276
11ade57a
PA
1277* Non-stop mode debugging.
1278
1279 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1280 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1281 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1282 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1283 section in the user manual for more information.
1284
1285 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1286 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1287 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1288 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1289 extensions on linux targets.
1290
d7713ae0 1291* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1292
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1293catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1294 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1295 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1296 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1297 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1298 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1299 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1300 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1301 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1302
08388c79
DE
1303find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1304 val1 [, val2, ...]
1305 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1306
d57a3c85
TJB
1307maint set python print-stack
1308maint show python print-stack
1309 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1310
1311python [CODE]
1312 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1313
d7713ae0
EZ
1314macro define
1315macro list
1316macro undef
1317 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1318 interactively.
1319
1320info os processes
1321 Show operating system information about processes.
1322
2277426b
PA
1323info inferiors
1324 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1325
1326inferior NUM
1327 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1328
1329detach inferior NUM
1330 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1331
1332kill inferior NUM
1333 Kill inferior number NUM.
1334
d7713ae0
EZ
1335* New options
1336
3285f3fe
UW
1337set spu stop-on-load
1338show spu stop-on-load
1339 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1340
ff1a52c6
UW
1341set spu auto-flush-cache
1342show spu auto-flush-cache
1343 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1344 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1345
d7713ae0
EZ
1346set sh calling-convention
1347show sh calling-convention
1348 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1349
e0a3ce09 1350set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1351show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1352 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1353
1354set disassemble-next-line
1355show disassemble-next-line
1356 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1357 the debuggee stops.
1358
1359set remote noack-packet
1360show remote noack-packet
1361 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1362 under "New remote packets."
1363
1364set remote query-attached-packet
1365show remote query-attached-packet
1366 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1367
1368set remote read-siginfo-object
1369show remote read-siginfo-object
1370 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1371 packet.
1372
1373set remote write-siginfo-object
1374show remote write-siginfo-object
1375 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1376 packet.
1377
40ab02ce
MS
1378set remote reverse-continue
1379show remote reverse-continue
1380 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1381
1382set remote reverse-step
1383show remote reverse-step
1384 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1385
d7713ae0
EZ
1386set displaced-stepping
1387show displaced-stepping
1388 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1389 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1390 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1391
1392set debug displaced
1393show debug displaced
1394 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1395
1396maint set internal-error
1397maint show internal-error
1398 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1399
1400maint set internal-warning
1401maint show internal-warning
1402 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1403
ccd213ac
DJ
1404set exec-wrapper
1405show exec-wrapper
1406unset exec-wrapper
1407 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1408
aad4b048
JB
1409set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1410show multiple-symbols
1411 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1412 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1413 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1414
74960c60
VP
1415set breakpoint always-inserted
1416show breakpoint always-inserted
1417 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1418 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1419 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1420
0428b8f5
DJ
1421set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1422show arm fallback-mode
1423set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1424show arm force-mode
1425 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1426 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1427 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1428 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1429
10568435
JK
1430set disable-randomization
1431show disable-randomization
1432 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1433 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1434 multiple debugging sessions.
1435
d7713ae0
EZ
1436set non-stop
1437show non-stop
1438 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1439 a breakpoint.
1440
b3eb342c 1441set target-async
d7713ae0 1442show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1443 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1444 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1445 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1446 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1447
6c7a06a3
TT
1448set target-wide-charset
1449show target-wide-charset
1450 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1451 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1452
84603566
SL
1453set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1454show tcp auto-retry
1455set tcp connect-timeout
1456show tcp connect-timeout
1457 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1458 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1459 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1460
17a37d48
PP
1461set libthread-db-search-path
1462show libthread-db-search-path
1463 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1464 libthread_db.
1465
d4db2f36
PA
1466set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1467show schedule-multiple
1468 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1469 the current process.
1470
4e5d721f
DE
1471set stack-cache
1472show stack-cache
1473 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1474 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1475 affecting correctness.
1476
910c5da8
JB
1477set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1478show interactive-mode
1479 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1480 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1481 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1482 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1483 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1484
2277426b
PA
1485* Removed commands
1486
1487info forks
1488 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1489 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1490 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1491 command.
1492
1493fork NUM
1494 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1495 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1496 alias for the `fork' command.
1497
1498process PID
1499 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1500 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1501 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1502
1503delete fork NUM
1504 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1505 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1506 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1507 fork' command.
1508
1509detach fork NUM
1510 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1511 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1512 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1513 fork' command.
1514
a80b95ba
TG
1515* New native configurations
1516
1517x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1518
b8bfd3ed
JB
1519x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1520
75a2d5e7
TT
1521* New targets
1522
c28c63d8 1523Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1524x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1525x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1526S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1527
6de3146c
PA
1528* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1529 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1530
d5cbbe6e
JB
1531* Removed commands
1532
1533catch load
1534catch unload
1535 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1536
75feb17d 1537*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1538
af5ca30d
NH
1539* New native configurations
1540
1541NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1542Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1543
1544* New targets
1545
1546NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1547Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1548
7a404eba
PA
1549* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1550
1551 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1552 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1553 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1554 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1555
430ebac9
PA
1556* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1557(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1558
fe6fbf8b 1559* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1560is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1561
1562* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1563including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1564and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1565
10665d76
JB
1566* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1567accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1568more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1569
7cc46491
DJ
1570* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1571
d71340b8
DJ
1572* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1573registers on PowerPC targets.
1574
523c4513
DJ
1575* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1576targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1577
a6b151f1
DJ
1578* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1579commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1580
2d717e4f
DJ
1581* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1582extended-remote mode.
1583
24a836bd 1584* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1585The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1586error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1587The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1588
d0c678e6
UW
1589* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1590building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1591target architectures.
1592
d64a946d
TJB
1593* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1594Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1595now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1596stored in two consecutive float registers.
1597
ee163bf5
VP
1598* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1599breakpoints now.
1600
b93b6ca7 1601* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1602Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1603include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1604 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1605 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1606 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1607 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1608 of an assignment
1609 - Improved command completion in Ada
1610 - Several bug fixes
1611
d001be7a
DJ
1612* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1613process.
1614
a6b151f1
DJ
1615* New commands
1616
6d53d0af
JB
1617set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1618show print frame-arguments
1619 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1620 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1621
a6b151f1
DJ
1622remote put
1623remote get
1624remote delete
1625 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1626
1627* New MI commands
1628
1629-target-file-put
1630-target-file-get
1631-target-file-delete
1632 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1633
1634* New remote packets
1635
1636vFile:open:
1637vFile:close:
1638vFile:pread:
1639vFile:pwrite:
1640vFile:unlink:
1641 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1642
2d717e4f
DJ
1643vAttach
1644 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1645 mode.
1646
1647vRun
1648 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1649
8d5f9c6f 1650*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1651
19d378fc
MS
1652* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1653bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1654Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1655
3a40aaa0
UW
1656* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1657symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1658-Bsymbolic linker option.
1659
a6ec25f2
BW
1660* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1661recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1662is not supported.
1663
6dd09645
JB
1664* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1665frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1666
c9bb8148
DJ
1667* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
166832-bit or 64-bit register values.
1669
0d5de010
DJ
1670* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1671
23181151
DJ
1672* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1673target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1674a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1675
ea37ba09
DJ
1676* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1677automatically displayed as character or string data.
1678
1679* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1680arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1681as strings.
e1f48ead 1682
123dc839
DJ
1683* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1684for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1685only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1686
05a4558a
DJ
1687* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1688iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1689
7c963485
PA
1690* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1691ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1692has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1693
b18be20d
DJ
1694* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1695
0ca420ce
UW
1696* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1697
31d99776
DJ
1698* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1699layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1700segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1701
a4642986
MR
1702* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1703immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1704
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1705* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1706"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1707packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1708where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1709Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1710
1711* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1712(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1713
1714* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1715according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1716
c9bb8148
DJ
1717* New commands
1718
23776285
MR
1719set remoteflow
1720show remoteflow
1721 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1722 when debugging using remote targets.
1723
c9bb8148
DJ
1724set mem inaccessible-by-default
1725show mem inaccessible-by-default
1726 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1727 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1728 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1729 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1730 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1731
1732set breakpoint auto-hw
1733show breakpoint auto-hw
1734 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1735 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1736 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1737 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1738 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1739 including "next" and "finish".
1740
0e420bd8
JB
1741catch exception
1742catch exception unhandled
1743 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1744
1745catch assert
1746 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1747
f822c95b
DJ
1748set sysroot
1749show sysroot
1750 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1751 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1752 an alias to "set sysroot".
1753
83cc5c53
UW
1754info spu
1755 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1756 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1757 architecture.
1758
bd372731
MK
1759* New native configurations
1760
1761OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1762
23181151
DJ
1763set tdesc filename
1764unset tdesc filename
1765show tdesc filename
1766 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1767 not query the target for its built-in description.
1768
c9bb8148
DJ
1769* New targets
1770
54fe9172 1771OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1772MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1773Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1774
6dd09645
JB
1775* New remote packets
1776
1777QPassSignals:
1778 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1779 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1780
23181151
DJ
1781qXfer:features:read:
1782 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1783 features.
6dd09645 1784
83cc5c53
UW
1785qXfer:spu:read:
1786qXfer:spu:write:
1787 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1788 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1789
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1790qXfer:libraries:read:
1791 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1792 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1793 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1794 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1795
483367ee
DJ
1796* Removed targets
1797
1798Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1799
d08950c4
UW
1800alpha*-*-osf1*
1801alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1802d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1803hppa*-*-hiux*
1804i[34567]86-ncr-*
1805i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1806i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1807i[34567]86-*-netware*
1808i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1809i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1810i[34567]86-*-sco*
1811i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1812i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1813i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1814i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1815i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1816i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1817i[34567]86-*-isc*
1818m68*-cisco*-*
1819m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1820mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1821rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1822sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1823
7ce59000
DJ
1824* Other removed features
1825
1826target abug
1827target cpu32bug
1828target est
1829target rom68k
1830
1831 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1832
ea35711c
DJ
1833target hms
1834target e7000
1835target sh3
1836target sh3e
1837
1838 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1839 H8/300.
1840
1841target ocd
1842
1843 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1844 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1845 interfaces.
1846
7ce59000
DJ
1847DWARF 1 support
1848
1849 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1850 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1851
54d61198
DJ
1852Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1853
1854 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1855 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1856 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1857 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1858
ea35711c
DJ
1859MIPS ".pdr" sections
1860
1861 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1862 in debugging information.
1863
1864Scheme support
1865
1866 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1867 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1868
1a69e1e4
DJ
1869set mips stack-arg-size
1870set mips saved-gpreg-size
1871
1872 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1873
6dd09645 1874*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1875
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1876* New targets
1877
1878Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1879Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1880
6aec2e11
DJ
1881* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1882(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1883running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1884
1885* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1886Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1887supported.
1888
17218d91
DJ
1889* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1890broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1891
9ebce043
DJ
1892* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1893stub provides the required support.
1894
7d3d3ece
DJ
1895* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1896longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1897
4f8253f3
JB
1898* New commands
1899
1900set substitute-path
1901unset substitute-path
1902show substitute-path
1903 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1904 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1905 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1906 between compilation and debugging.
1907
9fa66fd7
AS
1908set trace-commands
1909show trace-commands
1910 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1911 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1912 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1913
1f5befc1
DJ
1914* REMOVED features
1915
1916The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1917
2ec3381a
DJ
1918Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1919an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1920
3d00d119
DJ
1921The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1922
be2a5f71
DJ
1923* New remote packets
1924
1925qSupported:
1926 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1927 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1928 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1929 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1930 target.
1931
0876f84a
DJ
1932qXfer:auxv:read:
1933 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1934 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1935
9ebce043
DJ
1936qXfer:memory-map:read:
1937 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1938 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1939
1940vFlashErase:
1941vFlashWrite:
1942vFlashDone:
1943 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1944
0876f84a
DJ
1945* Removed remote packets
1946
1947qPart:auxv:read:
1948 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1949 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1950
e374b601 1951*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1952
96309189
MS
1953* New targets
1954
1955Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1956
1957Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1958
53e5f3cf
AS
1959* New commands
1960
1961init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1962 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1963
ac264b3b
MS
1964The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1965
1966checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1967
1968restart <n> Return the program state to a
1969 previously saved state.
1970
1971info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1972
1973delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1974
1975set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1976 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1977
1978info forks List forks of the user program that
1979 are available to be debugged.
1980
1981fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1982 forks of the user program that are
1983 available to be debugged.
1984
1985delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1986 that are available to be debugged (and
1987 kill the forked process).
1988
1989detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1990 that are available to be debugged (and
1991 allow the process to continue).
1992
3950dc3f
NS
1993* New architecture
1994
1995Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1996
0ea3f30e
DJ
1997* Improved Windows host support
1998
1999GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2000native console support, and remote communications using either
2001network sockets or serial ports.
2002
f79daebb
GM
2003* Improved Modula-2 language support
2004
2005GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2006basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2007pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2008printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2009written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2010GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2011
acab6ab2
MM
2012* REMOVED features
2013
2014The ARM rdi-share module.
2015
f4267320
DJ
2016The Netware NLM debug server.
2017
53e5f3cf 2018*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2019
e0ecbda1
MK
2020* New native configurations
2021
02a677ac 2022OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2023OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2024
d64a6579
KB
2025* New targets
2026
2027Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2028
b33a6190
AS
2029* New command line options
2030
2031--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2032--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2033 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2034--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2035 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2036 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2037 with the --command (-x) option.
2038
11dced61
AC
2039* Deprecated commands removed
2040
2041The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2042removed:
2043
2044 Command Replacement
2045 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2046 othernames set arm disassembler
2047 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2048 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2049 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2050 regs info registers
2051
6fe85783
MK
2052* New BSD user-level threads support
2053
2054It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2055library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2056configurations are:
2057
2058FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2059FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2060OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2061
2062Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2063are not yet supported.
2064
5260ca71
MS
2065* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2066(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2067
e84ecc99
AC
2068* REMOVED configurations and files
2069
2070VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2071Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2072National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2073
31e35378
JB
2074* New "set print array-indexes" command
2075
2076After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2077when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2078behavior.
2079
e85e5c83
MK
2080* VAX floating point support
2081
2082GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2083
d91e9901
AS
2084* User-defined command support
2085
2086In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2087to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2088section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2089
f2cb65ca
MC
2090*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2091
f47b1503
AS
2092* New command line option
2093
2094GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2095debugging.
2096
f2cb65ca
MC
2097* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2098
2099GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2100information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2101by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2102proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2103to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2104
d08c0230
AC
2105* Internationalization
2106
2107When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2108internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2109continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2110
117ea3cf
PH
2111* Ada
2112
2113Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2114implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2115into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2116
d08c0230
AC
2117* New native configurations
2118
2119GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2120
2121* Remote 'p' packet
2122
2123GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2124packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2125
2126* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2127
2128GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2129The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2130features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2131i386 application).
2132
2133GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2134compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2135continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2136configurations:
2137
2138hppa-*-hpux
2139ia64-*-aix
2140mips-*-irix*
2141*-*-lynx
2142mips-*-linux-gnu
2143sds protocol
2144xdr protocol
2145powerpc bdm protocol
2146
2147Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2148made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2149
2150* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2151
2152Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2153been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2154configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2155permanently REMOVED.
2156
2157h8300-*-*
2158mcore-*-*
2159mn10300-*-*
2160ns32k-*-*
2161sh64-*-*
2162v850-*-*
2163
ebb7c577
AC
2164*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2165
2166* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2167
2168When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2169heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2170been fixed.
2171
2172* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2173
2174When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2175fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2176IRIX long double values).
2177
2178* VAX and "next"
2179
2180A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2181command. This problem has been fixed.
2182
860660cb 2183*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2184
0dea2468
AC
2185* Fix for ``many threads''
2186
2187On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2188rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2189error message:
2190
2191 ptrace: No such process.
2192 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2193
2194This problem has been fixed.
2195
2c07db7a
AC
2196* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2197
2198Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2199GDB to dump core).
2200
c23968a2
JB
2201* New ``start'' command.
2202
2203This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2204
71009278
MK
2205* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2206
2207Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2208live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2209platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2210
2211FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2212FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2213NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2214NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2215NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2216OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2217OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2218OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2219OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2220
3c0b7db2
AC
2221* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2222
2223Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2224These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2225of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2226call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2227signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2228
73cc75f3
AC
2229Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2230features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2231include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2232
7243600a
BF
2233* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2234
6f606e1c
MK
2235* New native configurations
2236
97dc871c 2237GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2238OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2239OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2240OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2241OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2242NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2243OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2244
a1b461bf
AC
2245* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2246
2247GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2248The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2249including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2250migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2251compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2252work, was also included.
2253
2254GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2255module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2256
2257h8300-*-*
2258mcore-*-*
2259mn10300-*-*
2260ns32k-*-*
2261sh64-*-*
2262v850-*-*
2263xstormy16-*-*
2264
2265Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2266made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2267
3c7012f5
AC
2268* REMOVED configurations and files
2269
2270Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2271Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2272Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2273Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2274Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2275AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2276Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2277decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2278riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2279sonymips mips-sony-*
2280sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2281
e5fe55f7
AC
2282*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2283
2284* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2285
2286The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2287GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2288command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2289program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2290with GDB".
2291
2292* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2293
2294Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2295libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2296cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2297GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2298shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2299the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2300are created.
2301
2302Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2303
2304* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2305
2306The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2307non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2308compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2309
2310* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2311
2312Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2313wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2314
2315* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2316
2317The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2318permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2319systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2320
2321* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2322
2323Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2324has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2325
2326* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2327
2328GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2329its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2330panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2331
2332* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2333
2334When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2335by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2336not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2337
faae5abe 2338*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2339
9175c9a3
MC
2340* Removed --with-mmalloc
2341
2342Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2343conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2344
3cc87ec0
MK
2345* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2346
2347The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2348the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2349and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2350you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2351
f0424ef6
MK
2352* Revised SPARC target
2353
2354The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2355FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2356support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2357from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2358(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2359
59659be2
ILT
2360* New C++ demangler
2361
2362GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2363names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2364with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2365programs.
2366
9e08b29b
DJ
2367* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2368
2369GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2370arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2371encountered these.
2372
8dfe8985
DC
2373* C++ nested types and namespaces
2374
2375GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2376improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2377is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2378Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2379namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2380"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2381frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2382if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2383GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2384
cced5e27
MK
2385* New native configurations
2386
2387NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2388OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2389OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2390OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2391OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2392
b4b4b794
KI
2393* New debugging protocols
2394
2395M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2396
7989c619
AC
2397* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2398
2399The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2400and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2401tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2402
5994185b
AC
2403* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2404
2405Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2406been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2407configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2408permanently REMOVED.
2409
2410Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2411Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2412Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2413Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2414Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2415AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2416Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2417decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2418riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2419sonymips mips-sony-*
2420sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2421
0ddabb4c
AC
2422* REMOVED configurations and files
2423
2424SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2425SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2426Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2427Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2428H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2429HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2430HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2431HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2432PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2433386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2434Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2435 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2436 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2437SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2438SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2439Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2440Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2441
c7f1390e
DJ
2442*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2443
1fe43d45
AC
2444* Objective-C
2445
2446Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2447integrated into GDB.
2448
e6beb428
AC
2449* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2450
2451DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2452information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2453By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2454backtraces.
2455
2456The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2457have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2458DWARF 2 CFI support.
2459
2460* Hosted file I/O.
2461
2462GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2463file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2464remote protocol documentation for details.
2465
2466* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2467
2468All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2469architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2470to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2471ppc32 on ppc64).
2472
2473* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2474
2475GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2476per-thread variables.
2477
2478* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2479
2480GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2481GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2482
2483* Separate debug info.
2484
2485GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2486automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2487of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2488system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2489and optional debug files.
2490
2491* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2492
2493DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2494describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2495debugger.
2496
2497GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2498for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2499
2500* Java
2501
2502A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2503Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2504considered "useable".
2505
85f8f974
DJ
2506* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2507
2508The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2509commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2510kernel.
2511
0fac0b41
DJ
2512* GDB supports logging output to a file
2513
2514There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2515used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2516
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2517* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2518
2519The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2520disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2521command.
2522
e286caf2 2523* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2524
2525The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2526registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2527
d28f9cdf
DJ
2528* Profiling support
2529
2530A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2531be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2532session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2533"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2534data, for more informative profiling results.
2535
da0f9dcd
AC
2536* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2537
2538The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2539option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2540"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2541
2542Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2543removed.
2544
fb9b6b35
JJ
2545Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2546Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2547Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2548 in a subsequent -var-update.
2549
954a4db8
MK
2550* New native configurations.
2551
2552FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2553
6760f9e6
JB
2554* Multi-arched targets.
2555
b4263afa 2556HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2557Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2558
1b831c93
AC
2559* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2560
2561Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2562been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2563configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2564permanently REMOVED.
2565
8b0e5691 2566Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2567Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2568H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2569HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2570HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2571HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2572PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2573Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2574 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2575 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2576Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2577Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2578
5835abe7
NC
2579* REMOVED configurations and files
2580
2581V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2582Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2583IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2584i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2585i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2586i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2587HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2588 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2589 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2590Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2591Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2592Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2593OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2594I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2595
a094c6fb
AC
2596* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2597
2598The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2599the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2600context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2601address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2602The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2603
299ffc64 2604*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2605
46248966
AC
2606* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2607
2608When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2609`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2610in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2611library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2612shared libs like mad''.
2613
b9d14705 2614* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2615
b9d14705
DJ
2616Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2617the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2618arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2619powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2620
e0e9281e
JB
2621* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2622
2623GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2624and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2625they expand.
2626
dd73b9bb
AC
2627The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2628invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2629
2630The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2631macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2632
e0e9281e
JB
2633Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2634information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2635your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2636information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2637
2250ee0c
CV
2638* Multi-arched targets.
2639
6e3ba3b8
JT
2640DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2641DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2642NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2643National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2644Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2645Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2646
cd9bfe15 2647* New targets.
e33ce519 2648
456f8b9d
DB
2649Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2650
e33ce519 2651
da8ca43d
JT
2652* New native configurations
2653
2654Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2655SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2656MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2657UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2658
cd9bfe15
AC
2659* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2660
2661Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2662been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2663configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2664permanently REMOVED.
2665
92eb23c5 2666Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2667OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2668IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2669Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2670Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2671Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2672i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2673i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2674i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2675HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2676 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2677 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2678I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2679
db034ac5
AC
2680* OBSOLETE languages
2681
2682CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2683
cd9bfe15
AC
2684* REMOVED configurations and files
2685
2686AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2687A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2688AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2689AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2690AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2691
2692testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2693
20f01a46
DH
2694* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2695
2696This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2697commands. The default is 1024.
2698
a5941fbf
MK
2699* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2700
2701Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2702
89743e04
MS
2703* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2704
2705These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2706to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2707from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2708
9fb14e79
JB
2709* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2710
2711The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2712including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2713of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2714
2037aebb
AC
2715*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2716
2717* New targets.
2718
2719Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2720
2721* Bug fixes
2722
2723gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2724mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2725Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2726
2727gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2728dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2729Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2730
2731Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2732Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2733By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2734
2735i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2736avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2737By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2738
37057839 2739*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2740
1a703748
MS
2741* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2742
2743This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2744really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2745In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2746target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2747This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2748(notably embedded) targets.
2749
cefd4ef5
MS
2750* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2751
55241689
AC
2752This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2753process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2754GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2755hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2756
352ed7b4
MS
2757* New command line option
2758
2759GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2760
2761* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2762
2763There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2764command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2765a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2766be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2767open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2768issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2769a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2770it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2771GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2772is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2773
fe419ffc
RE
2774* Changes in ARM configurations.
2775
2776Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2777configuration is fully multi-arch.
2778
eb7cedd9
MK
2779* New native configurations
2780
fe419ffc 2781ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2782x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2783AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2784Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2785
c9f63e6b
CV
2786* New targets
2787
2788Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2789
9b4ff276
AC
2790* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2791
2792Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2793been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2794configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2795permanently REMOVED.
2796
2797AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2798A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2799AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2800AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2801AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2802
b4ceaee6 2803testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2804
e2caac18
AC
2805* REMOVED configurations and files
2806
2807TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2808WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2809PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2810PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2811PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2812Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2813Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2814 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2815SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2816Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2817Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2818ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2819Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2820
c2a727fa
TT
2821* Changes to command line processing
2822
2823The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2824for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2825
467d8519
TT
2826* Changes to key bindings
2827
2828There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2829
7072a954
AC
2830*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2831
2832Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2833
2834Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2835corrupted.
2836
2837Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2838
2839Numerous documentation fixes.
2840
2841Numerous testsuite fixes.
2842
34f47bc4 2843*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2844
2845* New native configurations
2846
2847Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2848x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2849MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2850MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2851ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2852s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2853
bf64bfd6
AC
2854* New targets
2855
def90278 2856Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2857CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2858UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2859
17e78a56 2860* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2861
2862x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2863Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2864Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2865 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2866TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2867WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2868Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2869PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2870PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2871PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2872SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2873Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2874ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2875Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2876
17e78a56
AC
2877stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2878kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2879
7fcca85b
AC
2880Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2881been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2882configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2883permanently REMOVED.
2884
a196c81c 2885* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2886
2887Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2888Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2889Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2890ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2891Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2892ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2893
6d6b80e5 2894* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2895
6d6b80e5 2896GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2897sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2898present.
2899
bf64bfd6
AC
2900* Other news:
2901
e23194cb
EZ
2902* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2903
2904* The MI enabled by default.
2905
2906The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2907revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2908engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2909using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2910which is now deprecated.
2911
2912* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2913
2914GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2915main features are supported:
2916
2917 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2918
2919 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2920 extension;
2921
2922 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2923
2924 - a Pascal expression parser.
2925
2926However, some important features are not yet supported.
2927
2928 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2929
2930 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2931
2932 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2933 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2934
2935 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2936
2937 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2938
2939* Changes in completion.
2940
2941Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2942to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2943users expect at the shell prompt.
2944
2945Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2946`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2947program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2948files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2949be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2950considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2951name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2952
2953`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2954
2955* New platform-independent commands:
2956
2957It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2958hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2959documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2960
2961* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2962
d7275149
MK
2963Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2964revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2965many threads as your system allows you to have.
2966
e23194cb
EZ
2967Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2968
d7275149
MK
2969Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2970multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2971
2972* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2973
2974Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2975
e23194cb
EZ
2976GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2977debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2978supported.)
2979
2980* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2981
2982Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2983breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2984implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2985put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2986and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2987registers.
2988
2989The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2990debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2991watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2992
2993* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2994
2995New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2996the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2997
2998New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2999display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3000IDT.
3001
3002New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3003from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3004New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3005a given linear address.
3006
3007GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3008program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3009which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3010
3011DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3012
6c56c069
EZ
3013It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3014
e23194cb
EZ
3015* Changes in documentation.
3016
3017All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3018Documentation License.
3019
3020Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3021manual.
3022
3023TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3024
3025Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3026manual.
3027
3028The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3029documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3030hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3031
5d6640b1
AC
3032* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3033
3034The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3035``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3036contents of this file.
3037
1a1d8446
AC
3038* gdba.el deleted
3039
3040GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3041
9debab2f 3042*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3043
c63ce875
EZ
3044* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3045
3046Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3047programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3048displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3049greater level of detail.
3050
3051* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3052
3053It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3054bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3055on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3056written.
3057
3058* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3059
3060The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3061necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3062machines ``out of the box''.
3063
3064The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3065possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3066signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3067would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3068interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3069
3070It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3071standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3072even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3073and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3074terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3075
3076The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3077enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3078also works.
3079
3080DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3081GDB.
3082
3083It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3084directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3085times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3086breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3087
ed9a39eb
JM
3088* New native configurations
3089
3090ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3091PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3092
7a292a7a
SS
3093* New targets
3094
96baa820 3095Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3096x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3097PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3098TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3099
085dd6e6
JM
3100* OBSOLETE configurations
3101
3102Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3103Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3104Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3105ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3106Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3107
9debab2f
AC
3108Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3109but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3110these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3111be permanently REMOVED.
3112
5330533d
SS
3113* Gould support removed
3114
3115Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3116
bc9e5bbf
AC
3117* New features for SVR4
3118
3119On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3120without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3121load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3122
3123* Many C++ enhancements
3124
3125C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3126in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3127
adf40b2e
JM
3128* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3129
3130A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3131sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3132with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3133``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3134
3135 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3136 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3137
43e526b9
JM
3138* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3139
3140A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3141expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3142instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3143
3144The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3145added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3146
96baa820
JM
3147* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3148
3149The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3150``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3151include ``set remote P-packet''.
3152
11cf8741
JM
3153* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3154
3155The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3156accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3157``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3158
7876dd43
DB
3159* ``apropos'' command added.
3160
3161The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3162documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3163try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3164
bc9e5bbf
AC
3165* New MI interface
3166
3167A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3168interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3169process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3170"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3171enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3172
3173 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3174
c906108c
SS
3175*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3176
3177* New native configurations
3178
3179HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3180HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3181M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3182
3183* New targets
3184
3185Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3186Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3187Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3188
3189* OBSOLETE configurations
3190
3191Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3192
3193Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3194but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3195these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3196be permanently REMOVED.
3197
3198* ANSI/ISO C
3199
3200As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3201buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3202containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3203use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3204available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3205configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3206information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3207already.
3208
3209* Readline 2.2
3210
3211GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3212
3213* set extension-language
3214
3215You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3216languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3217you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3218 set extension-language .c c++
3219The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3220and their associated languages.
3221
3222* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3223
3224When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3225you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3226PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3227
3228 set processor NAME
3229
3230sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3231following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3232
3233 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3234 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3235 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3236 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3237 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3238 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3239 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3240 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3241 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3242 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3243 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3244
3245At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3246special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3247registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3248only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3249
3250* HP-UX support
3251
3252Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3253more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3254library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3255support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3256for xdb and dbx commands.
3257
3258* Catchpoints
3259
3260HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3261generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3262to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3263
3264This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3265argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3266output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3267
3268* Debugging across forks
3269
3270On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3271in the inferior.
3272
3273* TUI
3274
3275HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3276it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3277configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3278
3279* GDB remote protocol additions
3280
3281A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3282Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3283fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3284allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3285
3286For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3287full 64-bit address. The command
3288
3289 set remoteaddresssize 32
3290
3291can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3292the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3293will be discarded.
3294
3295In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3296command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3297
3298 maint packet heythere
3299
3300sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3301disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3302time.
3303
3304The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3305target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3306downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3307
3308* Tracing can collect general expressions
3309
3310You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3311further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3312doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3313
3314* mask-address variable for Mips
3315
3316For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3317a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3318of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3319
3320* Higher serial baud rates
3321
3322GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3323230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3324to achieve all of these rates.)
3325
3326* i960 simulator
3327
3328The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3329builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3330
3331
3332*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3333
3334* New native configurations
3335
3336Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3337Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3338Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3339PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3340PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3341Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3342Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3343
3344* New targets
3345
3346Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3347Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3348Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3349Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3350MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3351MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3352MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3353Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3354Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3355Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3356NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3357
3358* New debugging protocols
3359
3360ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3361M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3362DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3363PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3364PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3365Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3366
3367* DWARF 2
3368
3369All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3370format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3371information.
3372
3373* Java frontend
3374
3375GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3376only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3377
3378* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3379
3380For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3381loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3382locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3383
3384* Live range splitting
3385
3386GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3387range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3388more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3389
3390* Hurd support
3391
3392GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3393updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3394
3395* ARM Thumb support
3396
3397GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3398instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3399instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3400accordingly.
3401
3402* MIPS16 support
3403
3404GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3405instruction set.
3406
3407* Overlay support
3408
3409GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3410linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3411will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3412control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3413additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3414in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3415
3416* info symbol
3417
3418The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3419the symbol at the specified address.
3420
3421* Trace support
3422
3423The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3424asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3425extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3426includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3427file tracepoint.c for more details.
3428
3429* MIPS simulator
3430
3431Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3432by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3433of most MIPS variants.
3434
3435* Sparc simulator
3436
3437Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3438by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3439Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3440
3441* set architecture
3442
3443For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3444basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3445architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3446the possible architectures.
3447
3448*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3449
3450* New native configurations
3451
3452Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3453M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3454PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3455PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3456PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3457RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3458
3459* New targets
3460
3461ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3462I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3463MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3464MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3465PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3466Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3467Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3468
3469* PowerPC simulator
3470
3471The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3472contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3473PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3474basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3475performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3476
3477* Solaris 2.5
3478
3479GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3480
3481* Windows 95/NT native
3482
3483GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3484To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3485which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3486Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3487ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3488
3489* dont-repeat command
3490
3491If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3492command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3493useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3494extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3495
3496* Send break instead of ^C
3497
3498The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3499rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3500GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3501
3502* Remote protocol timeout
3503
3504The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3505that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3506to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3507
3508* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3509
3510By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3511loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3512stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3513when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3514in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3515
3516Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3517/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3518automatically on hpux10.
3519
3520* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3521
3522Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3523
3524* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3525
3526When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3527may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3528the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3529every character. The default value is 1050.
3530
3531* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3532
3533If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3534a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3535replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3536details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3537remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3538to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3539
3540* Speedups for remote debugging
3541
3542GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3543the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3544and more efficient S-record downloading.
3545
3546* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3547
3548GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3549Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3550
3551*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3552
3553* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3554
3555The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3556can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3557
3558* Remote targets use caching
3559
3560Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3561remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3562it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3563debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3564off' turns the the data cache off.
3565
3566* Remote targets may have threads
3567
3568The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3569in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3570gdb/remote.c for details.
3571
3572* NetROM support
3573
3574If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3575support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3576acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3577write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3578support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3579another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3580sequence is something like
3581
3582 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3583 load <prog>
3584 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3585
3586* Macintosh host
3587
3588GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3589may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3590it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3591available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3592device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3593directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3594scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3595mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3596
3597* Autoconf
3598
3599GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3600but does simplify configuration and building.
3601
3602* hpux10
3603
3604GDB now supports hpux10.
3605
3606*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3607
3608* New native configurations
3609
3610x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3611x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3612NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3613Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3614
3615* New targets
3616
3617A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3618HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3619CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3620PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3621WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3622
3623* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3624
3625GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3626possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3627filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3628the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3629if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3630
3631* Arguments to user-defined commands
3632
3633User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3634Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3635trivial example:
3636define adder
3637 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3638
3639To execute the command use:
3640adder 1 2 3
3641
3642Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3643Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3644use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3645
3646* New `if' and `while' commands
3647
3648This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3649commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3650expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3651execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3652terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3653`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3654if the expression is zero.
3655
3656* Fortran source language mode
3657
3658GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3659Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3660variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3661with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3662Fortran compilers.
3663
3664* Better HPUX support
3665
3666Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3667running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3668processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3669for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3670that behavior do the following before running the program:
3671
3672 adb -w a.out
3673 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3674 control-d
3675
3676This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3677To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3678
3679 adb -w a.out
3680 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3681 control-d
3682
3683You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3684the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3685external linkage.
3686
3687GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3688HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3689
3690* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3691
3692You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3693commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3694current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3695"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3696associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3697configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3698
3699* New DOS host serial code
3700
3701This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3702no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3703a PC's serial port.
3704
3705*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3706
3707* New "complete" command
3708
3709This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3710were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3711
3712* Trailing space optional in prompt
3713
3714"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3715allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3716
3717* Breakpoint hit counts
3718
3719"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3720has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3721can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3722to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3723less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3724that breakpoint.
3725
3726* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3727
3728"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3729an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3730arrays actually contain only short strings.
3731
3732* Shared library breakpoints
3733
3734In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3735breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3736
3737* Hardware watchpoints
3738
3739There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3740targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3741
55241689 3742Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3743
3744* Annotations
3745
3746Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3747and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3748
3749* Improved Irix 5 support
3750
3751GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3752
3753* Improved HPPA support
3754
3755GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3756
3757* New native configurations
3758
3759Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3760HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3761Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3762RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3763
3764* New targets
3765
3766OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3767MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3768Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3769
3770* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3771
3772There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3773This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3774
3775* Fixes
3776
3777As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3778and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3779
3780*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3781
3782* Irix 5 is now supported
3783
3784* HPPA support
3785
3786GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3787to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3788GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3789of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3790can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3791
3792
3793*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3794
3795* User visible changes:
3796
3797* Remote Debugging
3798
3799The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3800target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3801debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3802integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3803debugging info for the mips target).
3804
3805* DEC Alpha native support
3806
3807GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3808debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3809work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3810Alpha-specific notes.
3811
3812* Preliminary thread implementation
3813
3814GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3815
3816* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3817
3818This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3819to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3820for details).
3821
3822* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3823
3824This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3825mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3826call methods, ...etc.
3827
3828*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3829
3830 * User visible changes:
3831
3832Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3833supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3834other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3835somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3836
3837Filename completion now works.
3838
3839When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3840arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3841addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3842
3843All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3844vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3845should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3846your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3847to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3848
3849 * DEC alpha support
3850
3851This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3852cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3853
3854
3855*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3856
3857 * Testsuite
3858
3859This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3860The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3861via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3862
3863 * C++ demangling
3864
3865'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3866emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3867Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3868disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3869use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3870
3871 * Simulators
3872
3873GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3874So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3875Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3876
3877 * New targets supported
3878
3879H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3880H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3881SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3882Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3883IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3884
3885Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3886version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3887GO32 memory extender.
3888
3889 * New remote protocols
3890
3891MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3892
3893 * New source languages supported
3894
3895This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3896used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3897into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3898
3899
3900*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3901
3902 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3903
3904GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3905version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3906University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3907compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3908format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3909(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3910
3911Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3912
3913 * Faster and better demangling
3914
3915We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3916demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3917character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3918only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3919This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3920increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3921symbol lookups.
3922
3923`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3924from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3925compiler does not actually implement.
3926
3927 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3928
3929In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3930inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3931recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3932very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3933The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3934circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3935fix.
3936
3937The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3938release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3939
3940 * Improved configure script
3941
3942The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3943you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3944host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3945done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3946
3947We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3948version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3949`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3950The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3951only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3952We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3953
3954 * Documentation improvements
3955
3956There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3957produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3958before submitting changes.
3959
3960The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3961M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3962`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3963you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3964a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3965
3966*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3967We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3968been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3969or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3970`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3971around this problem.
3972
3973 * New features
3974
3975GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3976the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3977`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3978the target program.
3979
3980The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3981how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3982
3983 * New native hosts supported
3984
3985HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3986386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3987
3988 * New targets supported
3989
3990AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3991
3992 * New file formats supported
3993
3994BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3995HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3996
3997 * Major bug fixes
3998
3999Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4000
4001We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4002printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4003
4004We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4005for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4006release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4007
4008You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4009will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4010
4011We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4012for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4013especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4014libraries.
4015
4016The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4017information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4018command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4019any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4020when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4021
4022 * Internal improvements
4023
4024GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4025debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4026
4027GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4028Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4029symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4030contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4031shared code that handles any of them.
4032
4033 * New command line options
4034
4035We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4036
4037 * Mmalloc licensing
4038
4039The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4040General Public License.
4041
4042*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4043
4044 * Host/native/target split
4045
4046GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4047hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4048target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4049local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4050ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4051
4052The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4053GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4054is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4055code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4056any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4057built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4058handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4059
4060GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4061It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4062plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4063
4064 * New hosts supported
4065
4066HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4067386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4068386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4069
4070 * New targets supported
4071
4072Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
407368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4074
4075 * New native hosts supported
4076
4077386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4078 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4079386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4080
4081 * New file formats supported
4082
4083BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4084supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4085format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4086
4087 * New commands
4088
4089`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4090`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4091These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4092
4093`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4094
4095You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4096scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4097prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4098executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4099
4100 * C++ improvements
4101
4102We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4103info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4104symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4105
4106Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4107
4108 * Major bug fixes
4109
4110The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4111fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4112by the compiler.
4113
4114We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4115support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4116
4117John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4118slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4119that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4120purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4121the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4122mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4123
4124Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4125about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4126completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4127we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4128
4129 * AMD 29k support
4130
4131A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4132specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4133calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4134usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4135in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4136
4137We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4138Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4139of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4140resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4141
4142 * Remote interfaces
4143
4144We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4145with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4146message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4147This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4148needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4149breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4150each instruction being stepped through.
4151
4152The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4153registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4154
4155There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4156find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4157Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4158processor with a serial port.
4159
4160 * Configuration
4161
4162Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4163`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4164supported, and what files each one uses.
4165
4166 * Library changes
4167
4168There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4169disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4170Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4171disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4172
4173The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4174Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4175can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4176grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4177
4178 * Documentation
4179
4180The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4181reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4182as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4183encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4184system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4185bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4186
4187And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4188
4189
4190*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4191
4192 * Better support for C++ function names
4193
4194GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4195names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4196(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4197single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4198Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4199
4200GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4201the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4202You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4203lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4204for the list of formats.
4205
4206 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4207
4208Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4209C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4210directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4211can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4212usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4213about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4214this problem.)
4215
4216 * New 'maintenance' command
4217
4218All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4219the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4220can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4221
4222 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4223 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4224 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4225 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4226 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4227 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4228
4229The following commands are new:
4230
4231 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4232 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4233 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4234
4235 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4236
4237We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4238(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4239be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4240read after argv processing.
4241
4242 * New hosts supported
4243
4244Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4245
55241689 4246GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4247
4248We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4249is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4250for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4251masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4252fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4253It costs extra.
4254
4255 * New targets supported
4256
4257Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4258
4259 * More smarts about finding #include files
4260
4261GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4262all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4263greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4264especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4265the one that contains your sources.
4266
4267We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4268breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4269try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4270
4271 * Interesting infernals change
4272
4273GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4274section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4275target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4276stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4277
4278 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4279
4280There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4281 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4282 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4283
4284See the ChangeLog for details.
4285
4286*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4287
4288 * New machines supported (host and target)
4289
4290IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4291
4292SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4293
4294 * New malloc package
4295
4296GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4297Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4298capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4299This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4300pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4301more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4302
4303 * info proc
4304
4305The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4306'help info proc' for details.
4307
4308 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4309
4310The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4311Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4312possible.
4313
4314 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4315
4316Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4317support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4318conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4319environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4320that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4321in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4322
4323 * Cross byte order fixes
4324
4325Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4326targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4327
4328 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4329
4330If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4331system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4332`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4333program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4334called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4335Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4336and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4337the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4338option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4339starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4340
4341You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4342the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4343information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4344slower, but makes future operations faster.
4345
4346The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4347build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4348A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4349use is:
4350
4351 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4352
4353The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4354It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4355shared across multiple host platforms.
4356
4357 * longjmp() handling
4358
4359GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4360siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4361all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4362platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4363
4364 * Solaris 2.0
4365
4366Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4367this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4368reading symbols.
4369
4370 * Bug fixes
4371
4372As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4373People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4374crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4375
4376*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4377
4378 * New machines supported (host and target)
4379
4380SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4381 (except core files)
4382BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4383Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4384
4385 * New machines supported (target)
4386
4387AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4388
4389 * C++ support
4390
4391GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4392The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4393per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4394
4395GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4396`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4397extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4398good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4399will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4400released.
4401
4402 * New features for SVR4
4403
4404GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4405shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4406only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4407
4408The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4409on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4410it prints the address mappings of the process.
4411
4412If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4413bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4414
4415 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4416
4417Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4418now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4419skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4420make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4421same code linked statically.
4422
4423 * New Getopt
4424
4425GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4426version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4427continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4428Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4429added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4430future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4431
4432 * Bugs fixed
4433
4434The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4435Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4436See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4437
4438
4439*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4440
4441 * New machines supported (host and target)
4442
4443Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4444NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4445Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4446
4447 * Almost SCO Unix support
4448
4449We had hoped to support:
4450SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4451(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4452that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4453about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4454
4455 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4456
4457GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4458debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4459is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4460send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4461reqired (if any).
4462
4463 * New Readline
4464
4465GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4466is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4467required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4468
4469 * Bugs fixed
4470
4471The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4472Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4473See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4474
4475 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4476
4477GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4478supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4479symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4480
4481Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4482mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4483debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4484mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4485version 2.
4486
4487Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4488really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4489line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4490variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4491situation somewhat.
4492
4493When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4494However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4495methods.
4496
4497We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4498DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4499encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4500
4501
4502*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4503
4504 * Improved configuration
4505
4506Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4507Porting BFD is simpler.
4508
4509 * Stepping improved
4510
4511The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4512of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4513in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4514function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4515
4516 * Bug fixing
4517
4518Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4519
4520 * New host supported (not target)
4521
4522Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4523
4524
4525*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4526
4527 * Multiple source language support
4528
4529GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4530It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4531and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4532language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4533You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4534`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4535
4536 * GDB and Modula-2
4537
4538GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4539currently under development at the State University of New York at
4540Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4541continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4542
4543Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4544debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4545symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4546
4547There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4548in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4549
4550 * set write on/off
4551
4552GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4553a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4554the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4555by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4556effect immediately.
4557
4558 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4559
4560When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4561shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4562The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4563examining core files.
4564
4565 * set listsize
4566
4567You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4568The default is 10.
4569
4570 * New machines supported (host and target)
4571
4572SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4573Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4574Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4575
4576 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4577
4578IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4579
4580 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4581
4582AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4583AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4584Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4585
4586 * New remote interfaces
4587
4588AMD 29000 Adapt
4589AMD 29000 Minimon
4590
4591
4592*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4593
4594 * New Facilities
4595
4596Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4597
4598Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4599target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4600is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4601remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4602remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4603also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4604using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4605stub on the target system.
4606
4607New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4608
4609GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4610library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4611object file types such as a.out and coff.
4612
4613There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4614refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4615
4616
4617 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4618
4619All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4620by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4621
4622For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4623``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4624Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4625
4626What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4627print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4628will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4629all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4630
4631confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4632 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4633 it is already running. Default is ON.
4634
4635editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4636 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4637 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4638 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4639 Default is ON.
4640
4641history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4642 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4643 or the value of the environment variable
4644 GDBHISTFILE.
4645
4646history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4647 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4648 HISTSIZE.
4649
4650history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4651 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4652 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4653
4654history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4655 history expansion will be performed on
4656 command line input. The default is OFF.
4657
4658radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4659 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4660 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4661
4662height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4663 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4664 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4665 variable TERM.
4666
4667width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4668 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4669 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4670 variable TERM.
4671
4672Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4673``set width'' instead.
4674
4675print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4676 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4677 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4678 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4679
4680print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4681 is OFF.
4682
4683print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4684 "raw" form if off.
4685
4686print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4687 like instructions.
4688
4689print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4690
4691
4692 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4693
4694The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4695new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4696are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4697window.
4698
4699
4700 * Support for Shared Libraries
4701
4702GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4703Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4704before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4705happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4706At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4707from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4708shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4709It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4710
4711sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4712 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4713 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4714
4715info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4716
4717
4718 * Watchpoints
4719
4720A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4721expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4722tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4723quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4724problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4725more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4726
4727watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4728
4729info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4730
4731delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4732disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4733enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4734
4735
4736 * C++ multiple inheritance
4737
4738When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4739for C++ programs.
4740
4741 * C++ exception handling
4742
4743Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4744ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4745the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4746handler's context).
4747
4748catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4749 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4750 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4751
4752info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4753 current stack frame.
4754
4755
4756 * Minor command changes
4757
4758The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4759command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4760is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4761
4762The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4763at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4764frames without printing.
4765
4766 * New directory command
4767
4768'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4769The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4770about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4771with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4772find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4773
4774 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4775
4776For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4777for more details.
4778
4779GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4780two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4781Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4782where the program that you are debugging will run.